April 4, 2003
3:15 PM
Hokage Tower, Konohagakure
"Come in."
Tony straightened up from where he was peeking at Pepper's laptop over her shoulder, and stared at the door. Okay, so the guy in charge could speak English. Good to know.
"Well, time to see what kind of mess Tony's going to drag us into now." Rhodey muttered, though he didn't seem too concerned; he was just standing there, holding Pepper's bag as she packed up the work supplies she'd had out. "Hopefully, we aren't going to get into trouble over the plane."
"Eh, I can pay them off." Tony waved a hand dismissively and sauntered off, striding through the door like he owned the building. He didn't, but he could totally buy the place if he felt like it (which he also didn't, but that was neither here nor there, because the point, in Tony's mind, was that he could).
The man at the desk was old, but not super old, to Tony's judgment, and he was usually pretty good at judging a person's age (he had to be, especially when it came to potential paramours that were young enough for him to have to ask for an ID first). This guy was older than the ages that Tony had the most necessary experience with, but Tony would put him at... mid-sixties, or possibly late fifties with a dose of unnecessary stress.
"So, you're the big man in charge. Nice to meet you. I'm Tony Stark." Tony, as per usual, dismissed most senses of decorum and simply walked up to the desk and held out a hand to the old guy to shake, despite being some ninety-two percent sure that Pepper and Rhodey were busy commiserating over how terrible a person he was or something like that behind him.
"Indeed." The guy's voice was heavily accented, but still quite understandable. He shook Tony's hand as if irreverence was a daily fact of life for him. "I am the Sandaime Hokage, and I believe my name would, in your order, be Hiruzen Sarutobi."
"Thanks for the thing with the plane, by the way. Some warning would have been nice from doggy-boy over there,"
ANBU Dog made a strangled sort of noise. He was probably looking at the phone for translations again.
"But thanks anyway. Crashing wouldn't have been fun, and people would start asking questions about how I managed to get one of my planes destroyed so soon after the last one."
Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "And what, pray tell, happened to the last one?"
"North Korea decided to try shooting us down while we were in the air. We made it down South far enough to make an emergency landing in South Korea, but the plane wasn't... well, it wasn't really in the best shape. Repairable, yeah, but still pretty heavily damaged." Tony shrugged.
"...You have many enemies." Sarutobi observed. Tony didn't bother trying to contradict him, just sat down in one of the chairs provided, Rhodey and Pepper doing the same on either side. The information wasn't a secret, and if the ninjas weren't capable of figuring it out from the days that the ANBU had spent with Tony, then they weren't worth being called ninjas.
"I'm not dead yet." Not for lack of trying, but nine kidnapping attempts as a child and five as an adult, and Tony still hadn't suffered more than a few hidden scars and three broken bones (two ribs when he was twenty, and the leg when he was sixteen).
"Good bodyguards?" Sarutobi seemed almost amused.
"The best that money can buy." Tony nodded, and then clapped his hands. "So, I should probably tell you who these two are. The lady's Pepper; she's my PA."
"Hello." Pepper bowed her head for a few seconds, the closest she could come to bowing fully as she knew she should be doing in a country with a culture so heavily based on the Japanese while sitting.
"And that's Rhodey; he's my best friend and also protection-slash-pilot fore this little trip."
"Pleasure to meet you." Rhodey's voice was stiff, but they were in a military village, a place that was putting Rhodey back into Air Force mode without much trouble.
"And they're two of the three or four people that I'm going to trust with knowledge about the kid without having them sign about thirty feet of paperwork." He glanced at Pepper, who rolled her eyes.
"I've had the NDAs written up since Wednesday, Tony." Pepper assured him.
Tony grinned at her and turned back to Sarutobi, who was watching them with a calculating eye. "So, what exactly is it that I need to know about all this? I'm guessing this isn't going to be as simple as this sort of thing usually is, and I can't really call that simple in the first place."
Sarutobi steepled his fingers, continuing to stare at them strangely. When he finally spoke, he was strangely hesitant. "Both your situation and Sasuke's make this much more complicated than usual. From what you have said thus far, I believe you mean to keep him out of the public eye. Am I correct in this assessment?"
"For as long as possible, or until he's eighteen." Tony nodded. "That's not a problem, right?"
"That's actually a rather good thing, I would say." Sarutobi leaned back in his seat. "Sasuke's going to have a lot of people after his head, and if he's both outside of the country and a living secret, then that can only make him safer."
"They're after the eyes." Tony had already asked ANBU Dog, yes, but... well, he'd like to hear some confirmation as well.
"Yes." Sarutobi said it simply, as though it wasn't completely ridiculous. "Given that he is both quite young and from a long line of Sharingan-bearers, as well the nature of his brother, he is going to be a prime target for many opportunists on the continent."
"Excuse me." Pepper interrupted with a smile on her lips and her usual air of I have this under control, but do try to make my job easier before I pull out every last plug in the shop, so help me God, Tony. "But what exactly is it that makes these eyes so special?"
Sarutobi raised an eyebrow. "The Sharingan is a doujutsu passed down through the Uchiha over the course of several centuries, at least. It manifest as red irises with black comma-like markings, which spin in conjunction with their usage. The eyes, at varying stages, can copy physical attacks, chakra-based attacks, predict the movements of the enemy, provide perfect recall, and aid in the casting of illusions."
Tony's lips had pressed thinner and thinner with every word. Part of it was just memories of his mother and her less-than-fond memories of those eyes taunting her at every turn, and part of it was just... "I always hated hearing about all that. It shouldn't be possible. At all. Biology just doesn't work like that. Your chakra can explain some of it, but the color change just... really pisses me off."
"So it's a genetically-based super power?" Rhodey asked, glancing at Tony, who only took a second to understand.
"I suppose so," Sarutobi answered, leaning back in his seat. "There are quite a number of them here on the continents. Even within Konoha, there are still several other than the Sharingan."
"So... like entire clans of mutants." Rhodey seemed to be considering something, though Tony preempted his question.
"Don't go running to any of your superiors. I think I know someone else that'll need to know first." Tony did, actually, if only by reputation; he'd only really met the man once or twice at some gala or other. Professor Charles Xavier was technically just the principal of some private school out in the middle of nowhere, sure, but the man was pretty well known for his research into mutation-based superpowers, and pretty much the top of the field, which was pretty surprising, considering just how rare mutants were, and how well most of them hid. Sure, there'd been that one extremist group that had cropped up when Tony was a kid, but there hadn't been enough to really cause much trouble before they'd gone underground.(1)
"You sure?"
"Positive. Now, are the eyes going to be something I have to worry about?" Tony fiddled with a pen that he'd somehow managed to dig out of Pepper's briefcase. Huh. He hadn't noticed himself doing that. "Other than the whole 'there might be people trying to kidnap the kid,' which I'm already preparing for because of the shit that went down when I was a kid."
Sarutobi tilted his head, considering. "There may be. If his eyes were activated during the recent tragedy, they were likely trauma-locked as well, considering that he doesn't seem to be under the impression of ever having them. However, if they were activated at all, he will perfectly recall every second of what he saw."
Pepper was the one to ask the question that Rhodey and Tony didn't quite dare. "And what did he see?"
"I believe that he walked into his parents' bedroom just as his brother pulled a blade out of their mother. Prior to that, he walked past a number of corpses to arrive at the building at all." Sarutobi seemed to grow older with every word.
There was silence for several seconds before Tony swore, standing up and beginning to pace the room. "Son of a bitch," he spat, turning on his heel again and again as he went across the room and back. "Pepper, please tell me some of those shrinks you were looking at have experience with kids with PTSD."
"I think there were a few." Pepper fingers twitched towards her bag, as though to pull her laptop out, but the motion was aborted partway through. "I'll check again later."
"Shrinks?" Sarutobi asked, eyes alight with... something. Interest, definitely. Maybe hope. He'd probably thought that Tony would do the bare minimum, all things considered. Well, too bad for him. Tony wasn't going to play at being his own father in this respect. He was going to do things as best as he could, and he had people to help him.
"Psychologists. We knew he'd need grief counselling, at least, but it looks like we'll need someone experienced in something a little more... difficult." Pepper winced. "Even without the perfect recall, we'd have insisted on sending him to someone on that front. No kid that sees that sort of thing is going to grow up right."
Sarutobi nodded along, but there was a different look in his eyes. "Mr. Stark, I believe I mentioned some contracts that had been signed by Uchiha Sasuke and his parents in the letter that ANBU Inu gave you?"
Tony resisted the urge to look back at Dog. "Yeah...?"
"Uchiha Sasuke is currently under contract to finish his schooling at the Academy and become a Konoha shinobi, and while I am aware that contracts are dissolved upon one's death in your country, and that a minor, particularly one so young, a contract can be easily voided. However... this is not your country." Sarutobi had probably already figured out what their knee-jerk reactions would be. Well, too bad. He'd be hearing it anyway.
"The ninja school."
"Yes."
"The one where he'd learn about how implement violence, kill people, steal, lie, etc."
"Yes."
"After his entire family was murdered."
"...Yes."
"If I didn't exist, would you be giving him any psychological help?"
"We would offer it, yes."
"But not force the issue."
"We would not."
Tony eyed him for several seconds, ignoring the warning looks that he was sure Pepper and Rhodey were sending him. "If that's indicative of your usual policy on literally anything else involving your ninja's mental health, I'm surprised that this is the first massacre you've had."
"Tony!" Pepper hissed, no longer trying to act as though she expected him to play at diplomacy properly. There was a strangled squawk from the back of the room, but by this point, Tony was kind of sure that the guy was just doing it for fun, not actually taken aback.
"It's true!" Tony pointed at Sarutobi, looking him in the eye as he spoke. "You're teaching a heavily traumatized kid how to kill and hurt people for a living and you just admitted that you wouldn't even make the kid try to go through at least some grief counselling, if not full-on years of therapy. You sure the brother didn't have some kind of dark history like that either? 'Cause at this point, I wouldn't be surprised."
Sarutobi waited patiently for Tony to finish, almost as though this was a regular thing for him. "If you're quite finished, I would like to point out that there are some extremely restrictive laws instituted by my predecessors that I cannot break without causing civil unrest. If it were up to me, Sasuke would not be allowed back into the Academy until he had been cleared by a Yamanaka. Unfortunately, my hands are tied."
"Thought this was a dictatorship."
"It is, usually. If we were in a state of war, my word would be absolute, and even without a war to deal with, I have the final say on all matters. However, my decisions do have consequences. There are repercussions, and I cannot risk the possibility of a civil war for the sanity of a single child, no matter how much I would like to. You, however..." Sarutobi inclined his head towards Tony, and suddenly, Tony understood. The kid would still have to end up coming back to the Academy, probably, because ninjas, and they'd probably kidnap the kid back if he showed signs of keeping the kid longer than they were comfortable with, but...
"Oh, you magnificent bastard." Tony was outright leering at the idea.
Sarutobi blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Sorry, it's... it's a compliment. Like calling you a mastermind. Ish. Sort of. You know, like playing chess with people's brains."
"Tony." The two reprimands came simultaneously.
"Sorry, Pep. Sorry Rhodey." Tony shook his head. "So, I'm guessing that part of why you decided to contact the decidedly not-ninja me to take care of the kid was so that you don't end up with another crazy Uchiha. They can't argue with an actual adult relative taking control of the kid's life."
"To put it bluntly."
"I know respect you more than I did three and a half minutes ago." Tony leaned back in his seat, smirking. "Anything else I need to know?"
"You'll be introduced to Sasuke tomorrow, but for the time being, I would like to speak with you on other matters. While the Shinobi Nations as a whole refrain from using advanced weaponry due to several international treaties that signed during the Second Shinobi War, there is nothing banning us from other forms of foreign technology."
"Opposite of a nuclear deterrent." Tony mused. "Rather than build bigger, more powerful bombs to destroy everything, you cap it off as low as possible."
"Not quite, as we focus our energies into other forms of destruction instead. Sealing and chakra-based techniques. I believe that the tailed demons can be nearly as destructive as a nuclear bomb, as are certain S-rank techniques." Sarutobi chuckled drily. "It is less a matter of not wanting to escalate in power than a matter of realizing that we cannot be trusted with this power on top of everything else we possess. The odd civilian may have a gun, and small-scale foreign bombs aren't unheard of, but anything too advanced is avoided."
"So what do you want from me, then? You should know that weapons is the biggest part of my company, considering how much Lassie over there was reporting back when he was at my place." Tony jerked his head in ANBU Dog's direction, just in case the reference wasn't understood.
"It was implied, I believe, that you have other parts to your company as well. I want to extend the offer of a contract with Konoha for certain supplies." Sarutobi leaned forward, his fingers steepled atop the desk. "Infra-red goggles, better radios, cameras, medical technology. We may choose not to use advanced weaponry, but the rest is free to exploitation."
"And other than the contract, what do I get out of it?" Something to the Elemental Nations would need to be largely secretive.
"It will go a long way to buying the goodwill of the more powerful forces in the village, and can be used as an excuse for you to take Sasuke away from the village whenever you need to, though I ask, of course, that you let him spend at least half his time in the village." Sarutobi smiled. "So, would you lend us your aid in caring for our sick, in supporting our security systems, in reconnaissance and keeping our borders safe?"
"Are you technically allied with the United States?" Tony bit at his lip. There'd been some shady dealings before he took over the company, and he didn't want a repeat of some of the things he'd seen. If he was dealing with shady governments, then they'd need to be on his side already.
"Konoha is, I believe, the United State's main contact within the Elemental Nations, and the closest of her allies here." Sarutobi explained.
Tony tilted his head, and then glanced at Pepper. "How quietly can we do this?"
She pulled up a new document. "We can route it through Japan."
"So..."
"As quietly as we did STRIKE and SHIELD." (2)
"We'll write it up as soon as we get back to Malibu, then."
o.o.o.o.o
1. Due to copyright issues, a lot of the comics characters and organizations do not and most likely will not show up in the MCU (at least, not for quite some time). However, their presence is something that is either needed or difficult to work around (for instance, Wanda and Pietro exist, but Magneto may never be mentioned due to FOX owning the rights). I'm playing around with this for now, with there being a smaller mutant population than in the comics, the mutant organizations being smaller and dissolving early on, and essentially just making them background, underground organizations that function well in human society, to the point where portions of the population aren't even aware that mutants are a thing. Similarly, the Fantastic Four exist, but they are out-of-focus and still completely human; that may change, depending on how I feel about them later on. Aliens exist, but do not involve themselves as much as in the comics. Spoiler alert: the first alien character from outside the MCU (so not a Thor, Thor II, Avengers, or GotG character) that we'll be seeing in this fic, if everything goes according to plan, is actually Teddy Altman, otherwise known as Dorrek VIII.
2. STRIKE is, in the comics, the British equivalent to SHIELD. SHIELD itself, I'm assuming, had quiet but completely aboveboard dealings with Tony after Howard died. Tony wasn't too bothered with what was being done with the weapons, since he knew that he was selling them to government organizations responsible for peace. He started paying a little more attention after Afghanistan, of course, but things still came in as primarily normal on that front. (It would, even if Hydra was getting its tentacles dirty with Stark tech. They had that well-hidden, after all.)
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: Figure I'll cut it off there. This was a long bit.
Ja ne,
Phoenix
