As some of you may have noticed: Yes, I updated the first chapter some time ago. And yes, I've also updated and rewrote this chapter as well.
Anyway, to those of you who are new, I'd like to point that an author by the name of Reige has started a small community called "An MCU Self-Insert Original Character Haven", and that's where you'll find some good stories. You'll also find Skyver Pi and the author of the community's story are also added there, and I recommend that you all take a look because those stories are pretty good. Just to warn you, those stories haven't been updated in a long while, but that's probably because they're trying to prepare for the upcoming films like the Black Panther and the Infinity War movies.
Anyway, here's the updated version of the second chapter and sorry that you'll have to wait a little while longer for the third chapter, but know that it makes me very happy to read your comments on how well this story is taken by you dear readers. A smile and grin always blossoms on my face when someone talks about how somewhat realistic and human the character is despite her super strength and spider webs, and how everyone is enjoying the different POV's mainly from Bucky and Tony.
Please remember to leave a review and enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: MCU belongs to Disney and Marvel Studios/Comics, I only claim ownership over my Original Character(s) and a little bit of the plot!
Warning: Language, Violence, Adult Content, possible Triggers (there will be heads-up for these things), and whatever comes to mind.
Trigger Warning! References to TORTURE, ABUSE, DRUG ABUSE! Read at your own risk!
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ഢҼb oҒ أӣҭԻأᏩմҼ
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B Ƭ
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The entire apartment appeared quaint. Normal. Sparsely decorated.
One bedroom and bathroom that had a small living room and even smaller kitchen that also served as the entrance of the apartment. There wasn't much of anything in the small home, but it was well taken care of from the signs of multiple cleaning products tucked away in the kitchen's sink cabinet. The wallpaper looked like they were about to flake and fade, but the absent owner did her best to make her temporary safe space as comfortable as she could.
She was prim, organized, and no absolute slouch. Every nook and cranny dusted and washed, and the scent of bleach lining up the walls and corners of the apartment said much about the lack of bug infestations.
Everything wreaked domestic.
Had this been located into a more safe and stable neighborhood, she would have honestly felt some doubts about whether she was in the right place or not.
But because this apartment was stationed in a crime-riddled hot spot, and belonging to a well-payed employee with detailed records on the amount of income they received, it really was no brainer on tracking down Edelweiss Booker.
A healthy dose of paranoia could help sometimes, but too much could create enough holes in a story that it would do more harm than good.
Looking down at her watch, she figured they had less than an hour before the girl would arrive home, so they needed to work quickly. Coulson had eyes on the ground while Clint had his in the air, the HYDRA front clear and quiet under their watch. Director Fury had been adamant that they brought Weiss under their custody before the attention she was drawing to herself would tip HYDRA off.
The only reason HYDRA had yet to mobilize its forces to secure the girl was because they hadn't realize she was the same person they've been looking for. Still, it wouldn't take them long to put two and two together before ruthlessly hunting her down.
But of course, Stark and Barnes kicked up a fuss at the idea of Weiss being left in their hands. Natasha had been there when Stark and his entourage confronted Fury; after all, if an organization was able to hide under the Director's "all-knowing" eye, who was to say that one of their own was leaking information back to the enemy? There was no way Weiss would be safe with them, HYDRA would snatch her up before she could even so much as step a toe into their front door.
The direct slight at their competence, or lack thereof, left a sour taste in her mouth. The tight jaws and narrowed eyes from the other agents told her the feeling was mutual.
Fury had given Stark a most baleful look before frostily telling the billionaire to, "Just get to her first before those motherfucking snakes do!"
The Director only had to give Coulson one look to prompt the agent to take the helm of being responsible in shadowing Stark and Barnes, ensuring that they would successfully extract the young woman all the while securing a safe route to the most secure location Stark approved (because all safe houses were now considered too risky).
"There's no pictures," Natasha observed as she slowly walked around, eyeing the walls and counters. No pictures, no trinkets, no items which spoke of intimacy that would help paint a profile of the girl. "There's nothing personal for her in here."
There was only essential things. It made leaving much easier should her location be compromised. Weiss was a flighty kind of person.
"She doesn't have a lot." Barnes said as he stood inside the kitchen, eyeing the quantity of food hidden away inside the fridge loaded with organic and healthy groceries rather than the typical take-out and artificial food.
"She doesn't have family." she easily translated, staring at Barnes' head. "She doesn't have friends. She doesn't have anyone."
People like that were often the most perfect picking to take without a voice of complaint from anyone; nobody cared if another invisible person disappeared. Yet Barnes knew something about the girl that he didn't want to divulge to anyone else, like he was keeping something he wanted for himself rather than letting everyone poke their noses in his business. Granted, his autonomy had been violated for so long that it would make sense he wanted to keep to himself, but this was a person of interest everyone was after and Natasha wanted some transparency of what she was walking into because despite appearances, Weiss was an unknown to her.
And an enhanced one at that.
From the corner of her eye, Stark had paused to listen but remained utterly silent on the subject. Instead returning to inspect an old stereo sitting on the corner of a wooden oak shelf.
All previous assumptions she got from studying and watching through media sources and magazines fell flat when it came to the real deal. Sure, he was kind of obnoxious, witty, a sarcastic smart-ass, and utterly brilliant but he could be aloof and professional—though, from what she saw, that was whenever Barnes happened to be in the same room as him.
That was to be expected. How could anyone interact with someone they knew was clearly responsible with murdering their family? Brainwashed or not, it was his face Stark saw when the Winter Soldier killed Howard and Maria Stark all those years ago.
But true to Stark's repertoire, he baffled everyone, including herself.
Instead of locking him into a prison and throwing away the key (or straight up murdering the man as most victims would have done in Stark's shoes), Tony Stark took Barnes off the streets, kept him safe and under wraps from the public eye (also keeping the public safe from the unleashed Soldier as well), got the unstable man professional help while also consulting with multiple experts on how to undo the brainwashing and conditioning instilled in the ex-assassin.
No longer did she see her attacker, her killer phantom, the source of her nightmares that cost her so many sleepless nights, for the Winter Soldier was more than some muzzled attack dog held by the leash of his cruel masters—he was a man who had been unmade and created before being unmade all over to start again. Beyond the vision of red and crisp overtones Stark displayed, he sought to help rehabilitate the dog rather than put it down.
(whodoesthatsoundliketoyou?)
That arc reactor wasn't just for show.
Natasha paused.
The AC was on yet little air was blowing through the small square ventilation.
"Got something over here," she announced to the others as she pulled out a small switch knife (SHIELD issued).
Flicking out a small screwdriver, she worked on removing the nails. Stark used a much smaller and thinner version of the armor's gauntlet, appearing like a metal fingerless glove that had nifty uses of its own. Like a magnet, the metal plate and screws were pulled out of the wall and stuck against the open palm of the glove. And just like she thought, there lied a black bag inside the open wall.
Unzipping it, all three paused.
"There you are." Stark pulled the familiar wide-eyed white mask.
Natasha watched the rest of the suit slip out of the bag, blinking owlishly at the bright blue Crocs that tumbled at their feet. What she previously assumed to be a high-quality tailored suit to help the masquerading young woman in combat turned out to be, much to Natasha's internal bewilderment, nothing more than a flimsy catsuit with Croc shoes attached to the bottom of black leggings. The ever present critique in her raised a brow at the infamous costume that had haunted every computer screen back at HQ.
Croc shoes? Really?
This was the "Spider-Woman" of Chicago?
From high speed car chases to armed store robberies, the wall-crawling hero was on the scene when things seemed to take a turn for the worst. Strangely enough, Weiss never seemed to overstep on the boundaries of the authorities, ever so considerate of the delicate situation between the community and its fragile trust with the law enforcement in the wake of Stark's HYDRA hunt. Yet, when things seemed to take a turn for the worst, Spider-Woman would step up to turn the tables in the police's favor.
"Huh. Would ya look at that. Kid did alright for herself." Barnes mumbled as a small smile bloomed vaguely on his lips while eyeing the material hanging limp in Stark's arms.
His Brooklyn accent rarely ever slipped through, but Natasha found that only happened when he felt at ease or off guard; however, those moments were brief as he was quick to remember where he was, not to mention who he was standing next to, before composing himself. Natasha could not look away from him, still comparing him to the legend that struck fear into her cold heart to the man standing in front of her. Seeing those little vulnerable moments he would accidentally display in her presence was sometimes, as silly as it sounded, beyond her comprehension.
Barnes sounded proud. The admiration was clear on his bearded face. Weiss, whoever she was, left quite an impression on the Winter Soldier.
Then again, the red-head thought, there was going to be some worshiping involved considering Barnes was not under the control of his captors and was slowly learning to live the life as a man no longer shackled to his prison of words, pain, and ice.
There was hiccups of course: raiding kitchens somewhere in between too late and too early when sleep was not an option, not remembering where he was and who he was, overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and unknown and unfamiliar, and sometimes wondering if this was real or if he was lost in the program. But all the bad he had experienced was not going to last forever because slowly he was winning the good things that were going to help him in combating the horrors of his past self. His world didn't have to be about order and missions anymore, who's might was right was no longer his problem, and the closest to a cold prison he'll get was when he opened the freezer of Stark's large fancy fridge.
Barnes was going to see that his world could be so much bigger than he thought, he was going to see it by the way people were helping him, the way he was rebuilding his own identity, the way he was surrounding himself with people he felt he could trust, and he was going to find it would only get bigger from then on and afterwards.
All of that—because of one girl.
(justlikethehawkthathadswoopeddownandcarriedyoufaraway)
"Okay, I know this is nice to look at but it's impracticable." Stark's one-sided commentary filled the whole room as he stared at the opening at the suit's white wrists. "Oh my God, please tell me this isn't super glue. It is. That's just wrong."
"Not everyone has expensive equipment to make nearly indestructible suits, Mr. Fashion Police." Natasha droned monotonously as she gathered the suit (and Crocs).
"I can make a better suit than this." Stark reckoned, but paused when he found himself in the receiving end of twin looks of disbelief. "What?"
"Just like that? You're going to give her an upgraded suit?" the red-head stared blankly at the genius.
Stark recently became incredibly protective of his tech and gear, never budging from the suggestions that his tools could help SHIELD agents, so it was a surprise to see how easily he was willing to supply a complete stranger equipment that costed millions of dollars.
"I said: I can. But now that I think about it, I might as well go ahead and do her a favor and make a better one than this. Seriously, the only special power this suit has is keeping her face hidden." Stark prattled incessantly. "But I gotta hand it to her in the design because, seriously, wow, this color palette she's got going on gives me 80's retro vibes. I get nostalgic just from looking at it. I'm keeping this for the upgrade."
"She's an unknown, Stark." Natasha stressed out. "Just because she sent you a heads up doesn't necessarily make her someone you can automatically depend on to be on your side."
Until she actually met Weiss Booker face-to-face, Natasha was going to keep her guard up and reservations to herself. Coulson picked her to remain with Stark for a good reason. The red-head's words unfortunately made Barnes go on the defensive.
"You mean on YOUR side." Barnes argued.
She met his challenging steel blue eyes. "I'm only keeping an open mind. How do you know she isn't leaking information to other dangerous organizations?"
"How do we know you're not part of that organization?" Barnes shot back.
"We don't know her motives."
"We don't know yours either."
They were going in circles. Barnes obviously knew more than he was letting on when it came to the girl. He was the only person to have come in contact with Weiss. After all, he had been the one to identify her through the hair dye and make-up she currently sported (he'd done a double-take at the image and someone privately joked about the guy finally seeing a pretty face after a decades long of dry spell HYDRA forced on Barnes; a joke which no one appreciated). His utter silence on the girl made a small prickle of annoyance rise from Natasha because it brought more unnecessary obstacles in profiling the young woman.
But the problem was that Barnes and Stark did not trust her.
She only had her small knives on her, but other than that she was basically on her own with the two men who could easily overpower her. This show of faith on her part apparently wasn't enough to dampen their suspicions towards her. Back when the mission had been about evaluating Stark, Natasha assumed it was going to be much easier to manipulate the billionaire while he was emotionally and mentally compromised due to the palladium poisoning that threatened to kill him. Any chances of gaining Stark as another card to fall under the favor of SHIELD flew out the window the moment she found Barnes in the billionaire's company.
And now that she found out that SHIELD was definitely compromised, overwhelmed by enemies that were secretly surrounding them behind false camaraderie, she and her faction had to work overtime in order to get Tony Stark and James Barnes on their side.
Bozhe moi.
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"Again!"
The Asset watched in silence. A couple feet away the girl was on the ground, breathing heavily and bleeding just as much, but she didn't move to get up as the Instructor ordered her to.
"Get up, malyshka!" the Instructor demanded.
The Instructor was losing his patience with the girl.
With his keen hearing, he caught the sound of her sharp intake of breaths beyond the exhaustion, and he could also smell the salty tears flowing down her bloody and bruised face. She was always crying.
She cried for the police, she cried for her parents, she cried for her brother, and when no one answered her, she cried more and more. It only served to grate the ears of the prison guards that stood outside her cell that they had had enough and beaten her until she couldn't make a sound. She learned quickly from then on to keep quiet.
Their lessons were beginning to stick to her. That was a good sign.
The Instructor nodded sharply to him after he lost patience in waiting for the girl to get up by herself.
The Asset strode forward then grabbed a hold of her arm, flinging the girl up on her feet. She wheezed out a small and pathetic whimper, trying to curl inwards to avoid what was to come, but the Asset kept a strong hold of her.
Rearing his arm back, he began his assault. Had he not kept a hold on her, she would have easily crumpled to the ground. He continued his barrage of fists, punching her jaw, her collarbone, her nose, her forehead, watching more blood gush from the nostrils and through the teeth and saliva. He didn't blink or flinch as specks of her spit and blood landed on his face, he was long used to that. The soft skin against his meaty hand blossomed light black layered flowers across her pale skin. No matter how hard her punched her, her skull never caved in like it did normally with other people.
The sound of fist against flesh and her grunts of agony repeated like acoustics inside the encased space of the training room.
The Instructor finally ordered the Asset to cease.
Like a puppet with their strings cut, she collapsed when he released her from his tight grasp. She would heal, the Asset had observed, the bruises and swelling would fade away in a few short hours.
During the time she was lying unconscious in a holding cell, there was little to be said about how she would be dealt with. Disposing of her would ensure the safety of the base and all it's staff. And one of the leading scientists behind the operation expressed a great desire to plant a bullet between the girl's eyes himself since her appearance only served to remind him of their failure to produce promising results.
That plan didn't come to.
When the girl woke up she tried to leave. Guards reported how she demanded a phone to call her family, but the guards stationed there only went in to kill her.
They ended up flying across the room, crashing into walls and iron bars.
Witnesses and cameras caught the entire thing, and when the staff reviewed the tapes, they were astonished at how easily the young woman overpowered the group of full grown men who had towered over her short frame with little to no effort on her part.
HYDRA failed an experiment, but succeeded in procuring a new student.
They began the process by putting her in a new cell with no bed and the entire floor flooded with cold water to sap away her body's natural warmth. The food was limited to keep her fed by take away her control as HYDRA wanted to enforce their control on her. And by taking away her control, they would take away her will with their batons, tasers, fists, and heavy boots.
A week after, they began her routine visits to the medical labs to take away her body.
These were the basics of HYDRA's education.
Your control, your will, your body, it was theirs to claim and reshape to their liking.
The concrete hallways echoed with her screams.
The Doctors found her regenerative abilities fascination, reporting that it was far superior than that of the Asset's. Her cracked and broken bones would mend itself and return to its original state before they broke it again to record the time it took to heal; they broke it again to record how fast it would heal depending on the how bigger the injury was, and again and again for whatever purposes they needed to inquire.
Further studies were done with their scalpels, documenting the pain tolerance her body could withstand before blacking out. They injected drugs and small doses of poisoning to observe how well the body's immune system and metabolism could combat against it before increasing them, ignoring the way she screamed and flailed against her bindings in pain (it did more harm as she broke her own wrists and ankles from trying to escape).
"Get up!" the Instructor commanded.
She was back on her hands and knees, blood and saliva falling like strings from her open mouth as her head remained lowered to the concrete floor. Dressed in medical issued sweat shorts and sleeveless shirt which absorbed her sweat, clung on to her skinny frame as each week made her more smaller and feeble. It had been over a month since she was recruited, and the only progress the staff were making was of her body. Her dark hair was a tangled mess from being constantly grabbed at, her body grew much paler from her time underground without sunlight and from the freezing pool sessions, and her voice began to fade as the Asset could barely recall her vocal tones.
"Get up!"
Once again, she ignored the Instructor.
Unbuckling a baton from his holster strapped to his thigh, he flicked it out to extend the instrument before moving in to strike her a punishing blow. These sessions were to be taken seriously, anything less than perfect was always rewarded with pain to remind the students to do better.
The Instructor swung his arm down—only to have his wrist caught.
Unlike all the other times where she usually started to plead for mercy, or brace her body for the pain the was sure to come her way, she did not welcome the punishment that the Instructor had felt was needed to discipline her.
The Asset watched as the girl swung her leg out in a wide arc until it landed against the Instructor, shattering his kneecap backwards, all the while removing the baton from the stunned Instructor's grip. And before the Instructor knew what was happening, before the pain of his bones crumbling like porcelain being grinded into dust caught up to him, his face exploded from the blow of his own baton and the Asset could tell from that impact alone that the Instructor's jaw was broken.
All this happening in the span of three, nearly four, seconds.
The disfigured and crippled Instructor collapsed in a heap before bellowing out a horrific cry. His bones exposed, his teeth knocked out, and his jaw unhinged, he flailed his arms with his fingers clawing on the floor. His words muffled by the blood and his toothless gums flapping uselessly into garbled words that sounded an alien language altogether. The Asset stood by, staring down at the Instructor, waiting for further commands that he knew would not be coming from the man below anytime soon.
It would seem there was promise in the girl after all.
The girl and the Asset looked up when one of the heavily locked entrances of the training ground opened up so that a group of armed men and women flooded inside, all guns aimed at her. Baron von Strucker stepped in after them when they were completely surrounded. As the Baron came close, he was cleaning his single monocle before replacing it back to its rightful place at the side of his eye. His cold eyes stared straight towards the still Asset before flicking their attention on the silent girl. The Instructor was still on the floor, whimpering and wailing as he crawled on his belly towards the Baron's feet, fingers clutching at his superior's boots for aid.
The Baron merely let out a small sigh before he pulled a gun out of his holster and shot the Instructor's head. The crack of the trigger bounced around the room until it faded like a ringing in everyone's ears. The squirming and obnoxious crying was silenced for good, leaving the air stagnant between them all. The only thing left was the smell of gunsmoke.
The Baron returned the gun back to its holster, clipping the buckle then lettings his gloved hands fall behind the small of his back where they curled together. His boots gave a half twirl to move away from the puddle of blood beginning to surround the former Instructor's head, a slow and observant gait as the Baron walked carefully around the quiet and pale girl. She was aware of him, even as her eyes stared past the heads of the security guards while blood dipped at her bare feet, she was very much aware of the man circling her from behind.
"You've finally completed the first few steps of your trials," the Baron explained carefully to the girl. "It must have been terrible, and frightening, but it was necessary pain for you to learn from this."
There was no reply.
"But there is still very much for you to learn. Whether by accident or a twist of luck, you will be given a great purpose." Baron von Strucker paused at the girl's side, easily towering over her as he stared down at the top of her head. "You will be rewarded through your hard work. We thank you every day for giving your best to let go what shackles you and freely learn our ways."
No words to spare, no thanks to give, no breath to waste. Like stone, her lips remained unmoved.
"Would you like to wash up?" the Baron offered, his arm directed towards the entrance which was still open. Inviting.
A reward system; if one performed well in the eyes of the Barons, the participant would be rewarded with promises of warm showers, an extra pound of their meals, a cell with a bed and no flooded floors, and a single day without the guards to take her will.
She was like eternity, refusing to budge for the forces trying to move her like seasons to the change.
The Baron dropped his hand, his eyes cool and his mouth faintly turning downward. The girl was still refusing to see the lesson, she was still unwilling to participate with the lessons. The entrance was no longer available when the Baron turned to the other guards and gave a meaningful nod.
With their guns pushed down and away from their fronts to hang limp on the straps that wrapped around the guards, everyone moved to unbuckle the clasps of their straps on their thighs. They pulled out their batons, and extending them created a static which flickered dangerously with discharged humming and buzzing. The Asset was not overly fond of those tools, they reminded him too much of the Chair.
"I guess some students need to repeat their lessons until they finally let it sink in..." the Baron said, he turned towards the entrance and called over his shoulder, "Soldat!"
The Asset followed the Baron, the guards stepping aside as he remained without side-stepping. The girl could try to be unruly and stubborn to her teachers, she could tell herself that she knew better than them, but all the students before her thought the same. She was only going to lag behind from her lessons, and if she continued on with her pointless struggling, the punishment for her stubbornness was only going to bring—
"I can do this all day."
It was quiet, barely a breath of sound and words filtering through her mouth, but the Asset froze from taking another step after the Baron.
The Asset never stopped for anything outside of an order from a superior commanding officer, but somehow the muscles of his body clenched and his brain cut off all connections to allow him to move forward.
The Asset was hesitating.
The Baron noticed the lack of footsteps following behind him, and von Strucker called for the Asset's obedience. If he could, the Asset would follow, the Asset would do as was ordered, the Asset would never falter or hesitate, the Asset was—
He looked back.
Surrounded by a bunch of meatheads, a picture far too familiar for his liking. All big and strong and packing like a heavyweight boxing champion, ready to pummel the tiny stick-of-punk who had their own fists raised for a brawl. Punk knew they weren't gonna walk away from this fight unscathed, with the blood on their knuckles and the swollen eyes blinding 'em, but the punk wasn't gonna run away either. Try as hard as they might, hardest as they coulda, they were gonna fumble and get knocked down.
But still...! The punk wasn't gonna go down without swingin' their tiny fists. They weren't gonna roll over for any schmuck who thought they can bully 'em.
Just 'cause they wore a coat that threatened to swallow up their entire frame, or wear hand-me-down shoes that were a few sizes too big (gotta stuff 'em with newspapers), didn't make the punk lesser than anybody else the rest of the block. And it sure didn't give any fatheads the right to think they can just walk all over the punk.
(whoisthat?)
The first meathead swung, heavy arm aimed for the strike from behind. There was a voice coming from somewhere, but he didn't pay it any mind, too busy watching with growing horror that the little punk was about to get another concussion. He knows how ugly those were, but so much worse against someone so small and weak. Blood covering the whole side of their head, the sink full of pink water from trying to wash it off from those thin blond locks.
He forced his body to move, he forced his body to reach for them.
(whoareyou?)
The voice was muddled like he was under water, he couldn't make out the words, but he didn't care about that. None of that mattered to him right now because he had to stop this fight from breaking out. He had to grab that punk and take them home.
There was already blood on their shirt, the fabric looking like it was going to slide off their bony shoulders.
(Iknowyou)
He never reached the punk; someone struck him from behind.
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Pepper was the one who called him.
Six hours later, he was flying from Washington D.C. to Malibu. On the course of the flight, various scenarios flew around Rhodey's mind, wondering just what sort of funk his best friend fell into that caused him to lock everyone out of his workshop and forbidden JARVIS to call out an SOS for his creator. Was Tony beating himself up for what happened back in New York with Pepper and Happy?
Shaken as everyone was after the incident, no one was thankfully hurt. The weirdo in the tights didn't seem to be aiming for harm, as the report Rhodey read stated, but had only dropped a tiny box in Pepper's hands before disappearing altogether. A box that had no bombs, chemicals, or live snakes (that had been quite a memorable surprise).
The police didn't have a chance to take their investigations any further because as soon as Tony swept in the room, he took everything and walked away (including a police sketch of the masked intruder).
And then everything went silent from the genius' end as he locked everything and everyone outside of his basement. Pepper's personal access code to enter had been revoked, and Rhodey was willing to guess that his was also no longer of use.
Whatever present that asshole in the mask left for Tony, Rhodey would bet it was the source of all the trouble.
When he arrived at the airport, Happy was already there waiting for him, and when he reached the Malibu mansion, Pepper was there to open the door and lead him inside. Climbing down the flight of stairs to the basement level of the workshop and garage, Rhodey paused when he saw the windowpanes were in blackout mode which prevented him from seeing what was going on inside. Worry began to gnaw itself up Rhodey's throat, and he had to take a few deep breaths as he knocked and called Tony's name, but ultimately getting no response.
"Tony?" Rhodey slapped against the tinted glass, growing more and more frustrated and anxious from the lack of witty replies Tony would have immediately thrown his way. "C'mon, man, let me in! You're scaring Pepper and Happy! You're scaring me! Open up and talk to me! Tony!"
He hissed when he slammed the bottom side of his fist against the glass panels.
"JARVIS! Tell me he's okay!" he demanded, but the AI was uncharacteristically silent.
What. In. The. HELL?
"Tony, I swear to God...!" Rhodey cursed as he pushed his access code, but just like he predicted, the door denied him entry. "Motherfucker!"
He paused from pulling away from the keypad of buttons before his thumb began to press on another set of familiar access code. To Rhodey's surprise, the door gave a small hiss signaling that it was open.
He and Pepper exchanged looks.
"Who's—?"
Rhodey swallowed heavily. "Stane's."
They both remained silent, refusing to further approach a taboo subject that still left salt on their open wounds. Rhodey pushed the door open and he stared at what lied ahead of him.
It was a mess.
Tools and compartments lying haphazardly on the floor, scattered messily like they've been shoved and kicked aside. Looking towards the garage, he saw several of the cars having horrible scratch marks, broken windows, and dented hides, all of it caused by a mangled-look crowbar that was sticking out of the hood of one of the cars. He looked around for any signs of the engineer, but stopped when he spotted DUM-E and U. The poor bots were hiding at the far corner of the workshop, giving pitiful chirps but staying where they were, afraid of the disaster that surrounded them.
Something about the entire scene pulled at his memories, but Rhodey pushed them away to forge on, searching for the missing genius.
The heavy smell of alcohol drifted in the air, and Rhodey followed the scent. The hesitant steps of crushed glass under high heels told him that Pepper was following close behind, determined to find their man.
"Tony!" Rhodey called, scanning the lab.
A small rustle from somewhere on the floor caught his attention, and Rhodey quickly passed through the aisles of work desks before his eyes locked on a body sitting on the floor, leaning against the back of a random workbench with an open bottle of scotch that was half empty.
Tony was an absolute wreck. He looked just like those horrible days where he was lost in the sensation of creative drugs and constant partying, spiraling more out of control until Rhodey and Pepper (and Stane) convinced him, pleaded him, to go to rehab. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale and sickly, his body hunched to make him smaller, skin trembling like he had been stuck inside a freezer, and his hands bloody from where he had been crashing into things to destroy and tear apart until it was no longer recognized.
He and Pepper quickly joined his side. The ginger-haired woman took Tony's hands, her watery eyes looking at the damage carefully.
"He's so cold."
"Jesus, Tony," Rhodey slipped off his jacket to wrap around Tony's trembling shoulders. "What the hell?"
"JARVIS," Tony croaked, and Rhodey couldn't stop himself from flinching at hearing how torn and ripped his best friend's voice sounded to his ears.
Like he had been screaming non-stop for hours. How was Tony even conscious? He looked like he should be put in a hospital.
Several holoscreens appeared from thin air, hovering over them. After Pepper assured that she would not leave Tony all alone (never again), Rhodey stood and approached the closest screen.
"What am I looking at?" he asked after a moment, fingers flicking through the files only to be met with more. "What even is all this? Did you hack into something?"
Suddenly, Tony was laughing. It came low and quiet, and his shoulders shook even more while his head hung down that Pepper had to press her hands against his chest to keep him from falling forward. But then the cackling turned to wheezing, his small lungs (to make room for the battery stuck in his chest) trying to inhale every breath as he reached his bloody hands for Pepper.
He wasn't laughing, Rhodey realized. Tony was crying.
Rhodey abandoned the holoscreens to join Tony on the floor, wrapping an arm around the other man. There was glass crunching from the other side and they saw Happy tentatively walking carefully around the lab.
"They did this to me..." Tony whispered, barely coherent enough to speak. "They've been doing this for years."
"Tones, c'mon," Rhodey waved at Happy to help him. "Let's get you to bed, man. You ain't looking so hot right now."
But then Tony was furiously clutching to Rhodey's arms, shaking him like he was trying to knock sense into Rhodey as his spat, "THEY LIED TO ME! THEY FUCKING LIED TO ME!"
"Tony!" Pepper shouted, startled as everyone was from the anger that ignited behind those vicious browns of Tony's.
"It wasn't an accident! It was never my father's—!" Tony babbled, still shaking Rhodey but his efforts quickly lost strengths as his emotions took a downward turn. "They took them from me! He took them! All this time, I thought...!"
Happy and Rhodey had to haul him through the broken mess of the lab and towards the bedroom where they had to help him into his bathroom. Soon as the guy got on his knees, he was puking away all the alcohol he had consumed. The whole thing was just messy. Pepper went to a different room because she couldn't handle seeing her boss like this. The girls he brought home, the questionable actions he made during board meetings, and the whole shutting down Stark Industries weapons business, all of that she could handle... but never this, whatever this was.
The only thing she could do for Tony was call for an ambulance. They needed to get him to a hospital because Tony had been locked down inside his lab for hours, so they really had no way of knowing how much he had been drinking that it could lead to him having alcohol poisoning.
When they washed off the stink and puke and sweat and blood, Happy and Rhodey (both wet from the shower head since Tony no longer took baths after Afghanistan) carried their friend to lie in his bed. Towels and blankets wrapped around the unconscious man, Rhodey left them as the others promised to not leave Tony's side to return to the workshop.
DUM-E and U were already trying to clean up the mess, their actions slow and small that Rhodey was reminded of gloomy toddlers it made his head ache in pity. Stepping around the damaged path, Rhodey stopped at the workbench where the holoscreens were last seen. Whatever set Tony off, that made him say those things, that made his boy cry, Rhodey wanted to know and get to the bottom of it.
"Alright, J, show me what Tony's been looking into." Rhodey commanded.
Hours of exploring through the data never prepared Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes of what he was going to find waiting inside.
Familiar figures from within the Pentagon were leaking secret information to enemy countries; terrorist groups being supported by governments wanting to keep innocent citizens in line and under control with death threats and public executions; high ranking soldiers ordered to intentionally cause chaos and keep the fighting from ceasing; attempts of peace treaties and cease fires meet with assassinations; honest reporters and investigators killed under the ruse of accidents while yellow journalists and corrupt officials swept everything under the rug for money; shady politicians making their way to the top while their opponents faced fake scandals until they were forced to back down from the race; promising companies that wanted to do good constantly sabotaged from the inside to slow their path until they went bankrupt.
All this and more caused by one main group Rhodey had heard stories about like a ghost story told around the campfire in the darkest of nights where it felt like the encroaching black would come and swallow him whole should he stray from the fire's light.
The few times he visited Tony's old mansion when the Stark family resided in New York, the rare times he met Howard Stark, he was treated with stories that his best friend knew by heart since he could learn to walk.
Howard Stark told him about the war, about Captain America, about the Howling Commandos, about Peggy Carter and Colonel Chester Phillips of the SSR.
He also told Rhodey about HYDRA.
Howard described them as the worst of humanity had to offer; killing everyone and everything, including their own countrymen and Axis allies, capturing innocent citizens and prisoners of war to use for their own experiments. They were an infestation, a parasite, a blight to the world that needed to be burned down and eradicated from existence.
But still, a small sliver of that parasite survived it all.
Arnim Zola, chief scientist of HYDRA and right hand man of the Johan Schmidt, had been one of the selected scientists to transfer over to America during the course of Operation: Paperclip. HYDRA's ideology lived to see another day because of this. Taking control by creating chaos throughout the years, killing anyone and sabotaging anything in the name of the serpent society, growing so huge that it was hidden right before everyone's eyes. Rhodey had never felt so shaken to the core, horrified that this was living all around him, that his enemies were everywhere, even in his own military branch.
He recognized several names he knew that were listed as members of the damn organization. People he had shaken hands with at ceremonies, men and women who covered for him and watched his six when things got rough on the field, friends whom he had gotten acquainted with during family barbecues: all snakes with forked tongues.
He stopped at one file. It was separated from the rest on the screen, and Rhodey's finger hovered over it as he read the title.
12/16/91
He was exhausted, emotionally and mentally dying from reading only a portion of what was found inside. This was damning evidence that everything everyone had ever known was all a lie, and something told Rhodey that if he opened this... he didn't think he was going to walk away from this as the same man who entered.
He opened the lone file.
.
.
.
The video had sound, and Rhodey heard Maria's cries for Howard echo around the lab until they rang inside his head for hours afterwards.
(andwhenyouclosedyoureyesallyousawwasamachinewithafamiliarfacesilencinghervoiceforgood)