"You think this is the table they all sat around and talked about big important Avengers stuff at?" Aleksei asked as he circled the large glass conference table.

"Probably where Stark screwed all of his secretaries." Otto snorted as he sat down.

Aleksei gave the table a wary glance, but after a few moments of consideration he sat down as well.

Adrian and Gargan joined them shortly afterward, with Kravinoff coming in last, red eyed and yawning.

"A little too early to be partying just yet, Kravinoff." Gargan hissed, glaring at the man as he nursed his head. "We need to secure our territory, first and foremost. That means taking out any leftovers from the nearby blocks, scaring off any potential competition, and securing resources."

Kravinoff looked like he had half a mind to punch Gargan for his tone, but he seemed to cool off the moment Mac started talking business. His plan for retaking the tower had, by all accounts, been a stellar success. They trusted him. Or at least, they trusted his ability to plan.

"I'm going to block off each of the next four weeks and divide up duties accordingly." Gargan continued, taking out a slip of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolding it. He glanced at it briefly then spoke.

"Kravinoff, you're in charge of establishing our new territory. Kick any looters or gangs or whatever else back at least by three blocks. If all they need is a friendly talk, great. If all they need is a bullet, great. I don't care which, I want them out. I only want our guys to be the ones on the streets four weeks from now."

Kravinoff's bored expression perked up at the thought, a hungry smile splitting across his face.

"Otto, you're in charge of figuring out how much juice the arc reactor powering this place has left. Once we find out that much, we gotta start plans on how to rig up a power system to the Chitauri tech once the arc reactor runs dry."

Otto scoffed at that, "I'm not an electrician-" He paused at the glare that Mac was giving him, and quickly added, "But – but I'll find one! I know a guy that might still be able to lend a hand!"

"Who?" Gargan asked.

"I went to school with him. His name's Max – he's...a little weird but he's an electrician. Uh – a journeyman, but, he might – I mean – he-...that's – that's good I think – good enough.."

Adrian felt like he was watching the kid drown on his own words as Gargan just stared bullets into him. Might as well throw the poor kid a line.

"Journeyman ought to be fine." He interjected, glancing at Gargan. "The arc reactor technology isn't as hard as Stark likes to pretend it is." It was. "It's harder to set up a good stereo system than to just reroute a power supply." It wasn't.

Oh it was ridiculously complex and complicated to run and maintain an industrial arc reactor, and took years of training, but who the hell was going to find a single ARC-trained and qualified electrician in New York after society had collapsed? They didn't just have a bunch of electricians in boxes with a sign taped on that read 'free to a good home'.

"Well if he fucks up, that's on you." Gargan told Otto, who just exhaled in relief once he was off the hot seat.

"Aleksei, you're on cleanup with Kravinoff."

"Easy!" Aleksei exclaimed, leaning back in his chair, satisfied.

Finally, Gargan came to Adrian, gesturing at him. "That puts you in charge of resources. Water's not running, so, we need potable water, and food, ammo, guns, fuel, all the good stuff. Water and food first though."

"Hope you all like couscous and quinoa, because we're going to be living on grains." Adrian muttered. A collection of dissatisfied grumbles rose up from the group but Adrian ignored their weak protests.

"Four weeks. Kravinoff, Aleksei, get the blocks cleaned up around the tower. Otto, figure out our Arc reactor situation, get your electrician over here to help...and Adrian I guess you really don't have a deadline, but have an inventory for me by the deadline."

Everyone nodded, all of them already thinking about how to best approach their given tasks.

"Any questions?"

Every head at the table shook, and Gargan folded up his slip of paper and walked out.

Adrian sighed, still tired from sleeping on the floor. Potable water, food, and then a mattress for fuck's sake. He was too old to be napping on a glass floor these days. He caught sight of Aleksei weaving his way around the table toward him and rubbed his eyes, trying to appear more awake.

"I have something to ask, is special request." Aleksei whispered, although his whisper was more of a shout, nothing quiet about it. The entire room could no doubt hear him.

"Go ahead." Adrian didn't even bother to lower his voice.

"I need mattress." Aleksei whisper-shouted, looking ashamed, "Floor is cold and hard and back is sore."

Otto cleared his throat, looking between them with a matching look of shame upon his face. "...I too would...like a mattress." He whispered quietly.

All eyes now turned to Kravinoff, who was staring at the trio from across the table. He was doing his best to appear disinterested, but the tiniest dip of his head indicated he was in the same boat as the other two.

"Anything else while I'm out? Beer? Chips? Hot dogs?" Adrian scoffed, crossing his arms.

"Yes please, all three!" Aleksei exclaimed, sounding desperately hopeful.

Adrian didn't have the heart to tell him that he was being sarcastic, but Otto did.

"I might be able to get you all a few things here or there. Make a list, tape it on my door, and I'll keep an eye out." Adrian relented. "But I can't make any promises. We'll be lucky if we aren't drinking rainwater by next month."


Rounding up potable water and food was a hell of a chore.

Adrian was beginning to think that Gargan had given it to him purely out of spite. Logistically of course, it made perfect sense. He could fly, he was the fastest, and second to Rhino he was the most heavily armored.

Still.

It was long hours of searching through a mostly abandoned city, occasionally crossing into the burrows. But staring at rooftops yielded results. He began to learn what to look for. What signs of life on a rooftop meant that there were people inhabiting the place. Buckets left out for rainwater was the easiest sign. Spot a rooftop full of those, and he knew that the building had a permanent resident. A permanent resident meant a stockpile of food.

That's where the details got uglier. Sometimes a good threat could shake a person out of their hole. If they complied without a fight he'd even leave them a few cans for their trouble. This was a rare, and almost always happened when the person was just either unarmed or had a good head on their shoulders. The doomsday preppers that had 'seen it coming' were the ones that Adrian got tense around. They always had firepower, and usually shot as soon as they saw him swooping by a window.

He'd gotten lucky with one of them. One had decided that the stockpile of food wasn't worth his life. Or worth leaving his teenage son fatherless. Adrian had raided the stockpile of food but left the guns behind. It was the only way he could show the man gratitude for not forcing his hand to kill them both. He'd been glad it hadn't come to that.

The rest of the doomsday nuts or greedy sons of bitches who'd stockpiled food from their deceased neighbors weren't so eager to share. Adrian tore through their apartments and homes like a furious black wind. The suit made it so easy that he began pulling off dives and aerial maneuvers that he wouldn't have ever dreamed of performing in his old wing rig.

Concrete, wood beams, bodies, steel and cement. The Chitauri-metal that formed the wings tore through them all like a searing hot knife slicing into an already warm stick of butter. Bullets ricocheted and bounced off of his armor. His helmet, for all of its cumbersome clumsiness, absorbed a few well placed bullets and he barely felt a thing.

In the four weeks Gargan had given him to collect food, Adrian had gathered enough to last the five of them all of three months. For five grown men, two of which had to maintain mountains of muscle, it was an enormous haul. But they'd need more. That of course, begged the question – how long could they keep living like this? How long until they were forced to leave their meaningless prize of a tower behind? No matter how many doomsday preppers littered New York and Jersey, it all came down to a simple fact. It couldn't last forever.

Part of Adrian couldn't see any reason in asking Gargan what his plans for the future were. That part of him was the part that lay in wait for simple revenge. There was another part of him however. That part was beginning to finally accept the fact that this might be his new life. He hated Gargan, but Aleksei and Otto had become friends. Adrian couldn't lie to himself and pretend they were just business acquaintances anymore.

He felt torn.

There was the possibility of continuing this life if they left New York city and moved elsewhere. Society would eventually rebuild, but Gargan's need to stay sedentary in a dying city with an evaporating population wasn't going to do them any favors along the way. On the other hand, Adrian couldn't completely bury the possibility that Doris or Liz could very well have survived. One of them, or even both, could be alive.

Adrian couldn't ignore that either.

He flip flopped several ideas of how to move forward until a conclusion finally presented itself. Maybe it was time to reconsider Gargan. Maybe it was time to be completely honest with him about his need to find out the whereabouts of his family.

Mac didn't trust him. Mac trusted Aleksei and Kravinoff and Otto, but he never got too close to Adrian, even when he wasn't in his suit. He was expecting Adrian to strike at him, even though he'd done everything that Mac Gargan had asked of him. After risking his life multiple times, nearly dying during the New Paltz mission, spending weeks gathering food and resources, Gargan still didn't trust him.

Adrian suspected that Gargan knew he was hiding something. If that was the case, better to get out in the open that his true concern was for his wife and daughter, and not some half-baked plan to kill Gargan and become the new king on the hill.

Well, fuck it, he figured.

Adrian was a straightforward man. If a problem presented itself, he'd rather deal with it on his own.

Gargan was having his morning coffee when Adrian found him. He never wandered up to the helipad, which had been unofficially designated as Adrian's floor. He never went too far up the building while Adrian was away on a mission either.

Funny that he was only realizing this now. Gargan's patterns of avoiding the helipad deck and upper floors where Adrian resided had never really occurred to him until he'd had to go looking for him.

Looking up from his coffee and toast, Mac leaned back in his chair as Adrian sat across the table from him. Two of his thugs were nearby, both of them eyeing Adrian as they continued to chat over a pot of coffee.

"Can we talk?" Adrian asked, briefly glancing at the two by the door.

Gargan turned his head, jerking it toward the door. Without a word of argument, the two men shuffled out, leaving Gargan and Adrian alone.

Mac took a small sip of the steaming coffee. "What's on your mind?"

Adrian cut right to the chase. "I know you don't trust me." Adrian ignored the brief bit of surprise that crossed Gargan's face.

"I'm old but I'm not stupid Mac. I don't trust you either. We're criminals. You could probably count how many people you trust on one hand. Same goes for me. So I'm gonna be completely clean and honest with you here, and all that I ask is that you do the same. How's that sound?"

Gargan stared at him with an empty expression. Adrian knew that there were some serious wheels turning behind those blank eyes. He finally nodded, and Adrian continued.

"When I got arrested, Doris and Liz – my wife and daughter – they moved to Oregon. I asked them to do it. The fucking media circus around me was going to be brutal. I didn't want my baby getting swallowed up in that...I know you don't care about any of this. I'm explaining it to you because I want you to understand where I'm coming from."

Adrian paused, shifting in his chair. "I'm committed to this. I'm all in on this. On your plans, on Otto's tech, on whatever you want to do here. I'm in this for the long haul, but I need something in return."

It took an amount of courage Adrian hadn't expected to voice his request. He realized the gravity of just what he was asking moments before he had to force it out.

"I just – with the wings, I'd just need a week. Going at full speed I can get there in less than a day. I just need to make sure my Liz is okay. I need to know if they're both gone."

Saying this out loud was so much harder than Adrian anticipated. He could feel his face growing hot just from finally saying it out loud. It was as if the dread and fear had all been ephemeral and floating in his mind like wispy, feathery clouds. As he made his request, and made the words real, the fears became heavy and concrete. It felt as if frigid, sharp stones were resting inside of his stomach, reminded him of the brutal reality set before him.

Gargan's expression was unreadable for a long time. He only broke eye contact once to bring the cup of coffee up to his lips. Setting the mug down, he stared it at for a long time before finally answering.

"Otto's picked up some radio chatter. The military is in the early stages or reorganizing itself and wants to reestablishing a presence. Two days ago one of my men spotted a Navy ship. I'm not a fuckin' expert on boats but it has a bunch of guns on it and it's heading into the harbor."

Adrian didn't know whether to feel hopeful that Gargan had just gone straight into his next plan or filled with dread. Was he just downright ignoring his request, or setting up some kind of deal?

"You take the crew out and keep the provisions and guns in tact – then you can have your little road trip to Oregon or Washington or wherever the fuck you think your kid is."

Adrian couldn't help himself and scoffed. "Mac – I mean – a Navy ship? That's asking a little much don't you think?"

"So is asking me to trust you with those wings all the way across the continental United-fucking-States. You're my air support, you're the only one in the team that can haul food or weapons without trouble. We give up our air support, we give up a huge part of what has made this work."

"So, let me get this straight. You think sending me out to Oregon is more of a risk than setting me on a Navy ship? Gonna lose your air support real fast if some hot shot sailor gets a good hit in with a deck gun. This armor protects me from machine guns, not anti-aircraft missiles!"

Gargan just shrugged at him, indifferent.

Turning his head away in disgust, Adrian sneered. "You're doing this out of spite, aren't you?. You know what? Fine." He stood up quickly, pointing at Gargan. "I'll get your fucking boat taken care of. It's not going to matter in the long run. You can't seriously believe this whole thing we have going is gonna' last."

"What makes you think that?" Mac asked, composed and calm.

"We have to find somewhere with resources, somewhere people are gathering. If society is going to eventually rebuild, which – I mean – we all kinda figure that it eventually will...then what? What's your plan?"

"I'm working on it." Gargan responded quietly, which only angered Adrian further. "You're assuming, incorrectly, that I haven't thought a year ahead. Two years ahead. Five years ahead. We have no control over what's going to happen. What we do have control over is how well we're prepared for it. We need what's on that ship. The rations, the firearms, raw materials for Otto's lab. All of those resources can help us ensure our longevity when things do inevitably change."

Adrian found himself torn. He hated to admit it, but Gargan wasn't wrong. The amount of resources on the ship would be a huge boon. Still – attacking a Naval ship, head on, even with all the upgrades Otto had given his suit, was a suicide run.

"If...and that's one hell of an If...I'm able to do what you're asking, the military will just send even more troops up here. They'll strike back twice as hard."

"That's assuming they have the resources to strike back. It's one boat. You're assuming that other threats haven't taken advantage of this unique situations. Other threats up and down the coast that the Navy might be spending more of their time and resources on. They might not be able to afford to send another ship up this way."

"What if they can, and do? What if they send ground forces? We can repel criminals and gangs, but...a whole military force? We might win but I doubt we'd come out with everyone we went in with."

Gargan stood up, taking his coffee with him as he headed to the kitchen sink. He poured the cup out and washed it clean, setting it on a small towel upside-down to dry.

"I'm sending you to do this because I know you're completely capable of succeeding." He said, turning to face Adrian across the kitchen.

Adrian was thunderstruck. Even if he believed Gargan was telling him this in complete honesty, he'd still find it hard to believe.

Mac headed toward the door, looking back at Adrian one last time.

"I could've just let you die, back when you got shot. Rhino and Otto vouched for you but, I couldn't see the point. I figured, you were just some old guy. You were a big shot before you got locked up, sure...but anybody can learn to fly a pair of those wings." He shrugged. "I was wrong. I'm man enough to admit a mistake. The shit I've seen you do, the balls that it takes to just get out there and do what you do, consistently, day after day, and not screw up...I respect that. I wouldn't risk my most valuable asset on a job if I didn't think you had the skill to pull it off."

Gargan sent Adrian a pointed, knowing look. He then turned, and simply left. Leaving Adrian to stare at the door in complete shock.