Because you've all been so nice, have another chapter.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Thanks once again to Marvel Universe Wiki and Marvel Comics Database for background info.

It was dark when Tony woke up. He knew he was in some kind of cell, it was dank and cold. He was on his knees on a rough concrete floor, his hands cuffed behind his back. His head was pounding, his muscles and joints were protesting to being in such an awkward position and he could taste and smell blood. The cell wasn't very big, barely twenty square feet, so it must be a temporary holding cell, which meant that he'd be moved somewhere in the near future. Trying to take inventory on the situation, he raised his head wearily and squinted through the dark. There were no windows, but he could just about make out a door straight ahead of him –probably heavily guarded- and a chair to the right of it. There didn't seem to be a whole lot else, not that he'd expected much more, and certainly no feasible means of escape. He turned his wrists experimentally to see how tightly he was cuffed, only to find that both hands were completely covered with some kind of metal plated container. He tried to activate the Extremis, but he was either far too weak or something was stopping him.

A noise coming from the doorway stopped his movements, and seconds later the door opened with a loud metal creak. A slim figure stood in the doorway, and he didn't need to wait for the blinding light to come on to know who it was.

"Well, well, well." Maria said, walking slowly into the room and standing a few feet in front of him. "Tony Stark. Back from the dead." She shook her head and smiled. "I knew you wouldn't disappoint. I expect you want to know why you're here?" she paused for a minute as if waiting for him to respond. "Anthony Edward Stark, you have been arrested under suspicion of fraud, terrorism and treason, amongst other things, but you already knew that, didn't you?" Tony said nothing, staring up at her with hateful eyes. "Your little chums have been arrested under the same charges, and although we don't expect there to be a trial-"

She was cut short as the door was thrown open again and Captain America stormed through it, glaring at Tony. Maria stepped out of the way just in time as Steve slammed his fist into Tony's face, sending him crumpling to the floor, before heaving him back onto his knees and punching him again. Tony's head snapped to the side and he groggily brought it back up to look at Steve.

"Why did you do it, Stark?" Steve hissed in Tony's ear before hitting him again. "Why did you kill Nick?" he grabbed the front of Tony's bedraggled shirt and heaved him onto his feet, slamming him into the wall behind him and connecting his fist with Tony's stomach with a sickening thud. Tony gasped for breath and slumped forward, but Steve slammed him into the wall again, holding him up. "Tell me!"

Tony just stared at Steve, blood dripping from both his nose and mouth and practically seeping from an open cut near his eye. Steve roared with anger and punched Tony again, letting him drop to the floor this time and collapsing onto his side, no longer able to hold himself up. Five Cape Killers swarmed into the room and wrench an enraged Steve off Tony, still reaching for him as they finally managed to drag him out of the door. Maria cleared her throat and turned back to Tony, raising her eyebrows slightly.

"Well," she said. "That was…unexpected. I must apologise for Steve's behaviour, but he does have a point. Why did you kill Nick, Tony?"

Tony coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood, groaning a little. "I think we both know I didn't kill him." He managed to grind out hoarsely.

Maria smiled and nodded understandingly. "So what was your plan, Stark?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Gather together a little following and invade us? You must have known you were doomed to fail from the beginning?" Tony remained silent and Maria sighed. "I thought you might be difficult. It doesn't matter, we've got plenty of time." She turned to leave but stopped in the doorway, looking over her shoulder at him and smirking. "I wonder if Miss Potts can tell me your plan."

Tony froze for a split second before letting out an enraged yell, shuffling back up onto his knees and heaving himself to his feet. He stumbled forwards towards Maria, but before he could even make a second step, the cuffs binding his hands beeped and an electric current flowed through his body, stopping him in his tracks and forcing him back onto the floor again, twitching as every nerve in his body sparked and fizzed. Maria shook her head and closed the door behind her as Tony continued to convulse on the floor of his cell.

Both Captain America and Punisher were waiting outside Tony's cell, Punisher trying to keep Steve calm.

"Rogers," Maria addressed Captain America as he glared at her. "You have to remain calm, we have the situation handled. He's in custody, justice will be served."

"It's not enough." Steve snapped. "He needs to pay for what he did."

"And he will." Maria insisted, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Trust me, we have everything under control."

Steve shook his head and pushed himself off the wall, shrugging her hand off his shoulder before turning and storming off along the corridor. Punisher watched him go, raising his eyebrows but saying nothing. Robert rounded the corner as Steve hurried past and nervously pressed himself against the wall, making his way towards Maria.

"Agent Owens." Maria greeted him. "You did extremely well today."

Robert nodded and cleared his throat. "Thank you, ma'am. Um…may I speak with you? Privately?"

Maria nodded and walked with him a little way along the corridor away from Punisher. "What is it, Agent?"

Robert swallowed nervously before sighing. "I don't feel comfortable with having Ginny locked away." He said. "She was barely a part of this, and if you think about it, none of this could have been possible without her."

Maria smiled. "Don't worry, Owens. Miss Potts will be released in due course. As soon as Stark tells us what his plan was and who else was involved, she'll be free to go." Robert still didn't look too happy and opened his mouth to protest, but Maria interrupted him. "Why don't you go and see her? Explain what's going on. She may be more inclined to talk to you."

Robert nodded. "Yeah, yeah I'll go do that. Make sure she's ok." he turned and went back the way he'd come, towards the other cells, and Maria turned back to Punisher, who was shaking his head.

"That guy is a real pushover." He sneered, pushing himself away from the wall and following Maria as she walked past him.

"It makes him a valuable part of my team, Frank." Maria said, ignoring the look Punisher gave her for using his name. "He's less likely to be another Tony Stark."

Punisher laughed as they descended to the lower portions of the ship, into the research department. "Yeah, one of him is more than enough." He looked around, realising they'd gone further into the bowels of the ship than he'd ever been before. "Do I have clearance to be down here?"

Maria smiled and stopped as they reached a large, heavily secured door. "Would you like to see what all this has been for? What I'm working towards?"

Punisher furrowed his brows. "I know what you've been working towards. You want to get outlaw scum off the streets."

"That's part of it, certainly." She agreed, typing a code rapidly into the control panel on the door. It beeped once to say the code had been accepted and made a thunking sound as the lock released. Maria pushed the door open and stepped inside, Punisher following, mouth hanging open once he saw what was inside the room. There were dozens of machines adorning the walls, and with each machine there appeared to be a person hooked up to it. Literally. Each person seemed to be unconscious and hanging limply from secured fixings in the wall, cables and wires attached wherever possible on their bodies, at least three SHIELD employees in white coats monitoring the computers per person. Humans, mutants, aliens, anyone with an ounce of super-human ability. Punisher's eyes widened as he gazed around him.

"What is this place?" he whispered.

"My life's work." Maria said, leading him further into the room. "We're securing the safety of the nation, of the world, by taking away the dangerous few that could upset the balance."

Punisher walked over to one of the machines and took a closer look at the person hooked up to it. They looked pale, almost ill, and most definitely in pain. "You…you're ripping the powers from them." He realised. "You're killing them."

"We're curing them." Maria corrected. "Some may die, yes, but ultimately, we're doing these…people, a favour."

Shaking his head, Punisher turned back to face her. "And what happens to them when you've harvested their abilities?"

Maria picked up a chart hanging from one of the machines surrounding the room, studying it. "In time, if the individual is able, they're released back into society."

"In time?" Punisher asked. "You mean after everyone has forgotten about them? What happens to their powers? How…how are you even doing this?"

Maria looked up from the chart. "Well, now, that really is classified. What exactly are you getting at, Frank?"

Punisher shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, taking another look around the room. "This…this is more than I signed up for. I thought I was just taking scum off the streets. I thought this was just for the registration act."

"It is." Maria insisted. "But it's so much more than that, can't you see?" Maria hung the chart back up and stepped towards him. "What we're working on will revolutionize science and warfare. Once this is complete, the United States will be better protected than any other country on the planet."

"But at the cost of American lives." Punisher argued back.

"It's for the greater good." Maria said, nodding to one of the agents who stepped up to Punisher, placing a hand on his shoulder. Punisher shook his head again and turned, walking back out of the room, two agents frog marching him all the way out.

Pepper's head snapped up as her cell door creaked open. She was being kept in one of the custody suites usually put aside for the 'normal' criminals that SHIELD brought through its doors, those without powers or special abilities. It was no less horrible than the others, only less heavily guarded. She saw Robert's form enter and she recoiled slightly. She wasn't bound or restrained in any way, but she remained seated as he entered the room.

"Hey baby," he said in a soothing voice as he closed the door. "How you doing?"

"Me?" Pepper asked, crossing her arms across her chest. "Oh, I'm fine. My fiancé threw me into the back of a car and had me arrested, but other than that, everything's hunky dory."

Robert sighed and grabbed a chair, dragging it over to her and sitting on it, facing her. "You know I didn't have a choice, hon. I had to."

Pepper scoffed and looked away from him, staring at the concrete floor. Robert reached out for the legs of her chair and pulled her towards him.

"Listen to me." He said softly. "Hey." He cupped her cheek and brought her gaze back to him. "We can go home, we can forget all this. We can be a family, Ginny. You, me, and the little life growing inside you. All you need to do is tell Director Hill what Tony's plan was."

Pepper stared at him, before spitting in his face and slapping his hand away. "I hope the baby is Tony's." she said bitterly.

Robert's jaw twitched, and he calmly reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a pocket square and wiping the saliva from his cheek, before lashing out and slapping Pepper across the cheek. She tumbled out of her seat onto the floor with a cry and shuffled away from him quickly. Robert folded the pocket square back up, stowing it back into his pocket and bent over Pepper, looming over her with his hands on his knees.

"You'll feel differently when I get my new assignment." He hissed. "You'll see. Everything will be different." And with that, he straightened back up and exited her cell.

For the seventh time in the last hour, Natasha opened her secure e-mail account and sighed as a large zero flashed at her. It had been well over a week since she gave Matt the information to give to Tony, and she'd heard nothing from either of them since. Looking around to make sure she wasn't being watched in her corner cubicle, she pressed a few keys and opened up a programme to communicate with Jarvis, typing in the command code and sending a message. After a few minutes of anxious staring, a quiet beep informed her that Jarvis had responded and she opened the programme again.

'Message could not be transmitted'

Cursing under her breath, she re-sent it, gaze flitting around the room as her co-workers went about their daily business.

'Message could not be transmitted'

"Damn it." Natasha hissed, closing the programme and running a hand through her hair. She had a bad feeling things had gone horribly wrong. A feeling that was confirmed seconds later as Maria Hill walked into the office. Instantly, everyone froze, stopping their typing, and stared as she walked into the middle of the office and looked around, beaming.

"Everyone." She said loudly, immediately grabbing their attention. "I have good news. The traitor, Tony Stark, has been captured."

Natasha's mouth dropped open and her eyes widened as others shook their heads in disbelief, trading glances with each other.

"But," one worker piped up. "Ma'am, Tony Stark's dead."

Maria smiled that trademark sinister smile. "That's what we thought, too. But he was caught by our own Agent Robert Owens amidst a plot to storm this very base. He's currently down in the holding cells being prepared for transport to our secure sector, where he will be held until his trial."

The office remained silent for a second before claps rang out amongst the workers, followed by cheers. Maria smiled wider and held her hand up.

"Now now, like I said, hardly any of the credit goes to me, none of this could have been made possible without Agent Owens' help." She said. "I just thought I'd come down here and share this with you, show you that all your hard work is actually doing something, so keep it up." She nodded once and headed out of the office, leaving the people inside buzzing with conversation.

Natasha's heart sank and she slumped back into her seat.

"Damn it."

Maria headed back down to the sub levels of the ship after her morale speech and spotted Robert coming out of Pepper's cell, slamming the door closed behind him. He saluted her as she approached him.

"Ma'am." He said, standing straight. "I spoke to Ginny, she's still not budging. I'm sorry, I tried-"

"Owens." Maria interrupted, touching his arm lightly to get him to stand at ease. "I think you're ready for your assignment."

Robert blinked at her, shifting on his feet slightly. "Are…ma'am, are you sure?"

Maria grinned at him and turned with him, leading him along the corridor, past the research department and through a set of double doors. "I'm certain, Robert. You've surpassed yourself these last few days, and I already know you're more than capable as a field agent. You're as ready as you'll ever be."

Robert swallowed as he continued walking with her, along another corridor to the left of the medical core that he'd never been down before. "But…my leg-"

"Is something you'll never have to worry about again." She insisted, pushing him through one last set of doors. Robert's mouth dropped open as he stepped into the vast room behind them. It looked like some sort of specialised operating theatre. There was a gurney, a few bits of medical equipment that he recognized, like a heart rate monitor and defibrillator, but there were also a lot of things he was certain had never and probably would never be seen by the outside world. A man was standing in a white coat by one of these machines close to the gurney, fiddling with some sort of IV drip, only noticing them as they stepped closer.

"Robert Owens, this is Reed Richards." Maria said as she introduced the pair. Robert held his hand out to shake Reed's, keeping his stride to get close enough to actually complete the task, but Reed/s hand stretched out over the gurney, as if made of elastic, and took hold of Robert's. Robert blinked and withdrew his hand immediately, staring at Reed, who swallowed and went back to his task. "Reed has been helping perfect your assignment." Maria continued, walking around to Reed's side of the gurney and picking up the file lying upon it. "Are we ready to go?"

Reed flinched a little as Maria addressed him, clearing his throat and motioning to two other men to come over. "As ready as we'll ever be."

"Excellent." Maria said, closing the file and smiling at Robert, who was nervously shuffling on the spot. "Now, Robert." She spoke to him, walking back around to face him. "You've read the briefing on your assignment I take it?" at his nod, she continued. "If you have any doubts, any at all, now is the time to raise them."

Robert swallowed and shook his head. If anything, Maria smiled wider and led him over to the gurney.

"Ok," Reed said, sighing deeply. "Please remove your shirt and any jewellery and lie down on the gurney." As Robert did so, Reed took the Director to one side. "With all due respect, ma'am, I still think this is a big mistake. We still don't know if this will even work, if the subject will survive the transformation." He shook his head. "I think we should stop this before it even starts, at the very least do some more tests-"

"Reed." Maria interrupted him and he immediately stopped talking. "Reed, we have Sue and Johnny locked away downstairs, and I know it was you who told them about the raid."

Reed's face paled rapidly and he opened his mouth to protest, but Maria raised her hand.

"I don't want to hear it." She said. "Now you know we could quite easily take this as far as possible, which would mean a lot of heartache for everyone, including your wife and her brother. However, I'm a forgiving person, and I am willing to put all of this behind us and let you go home. All three of you. And all you have to do is complete this course of experiments."

Reed swallowed harshly and nodded, looking away from her. Maria smiled that creepy smile and patted his back, turning and walking out of the room to the adjacent one where a huge monitor was set up to give her a bird's eye view of the proceedings.

In the other room, Reed approached the gurney as Robert was strapped down. He arms and legs were secured into large metal brackets and his head strapped down into another. He gulped and looked up at Reed as he adjusted the IV drip again before placing it into a vein in Robert's arm.

"So, what's the success rate with this thing?" Robert asked nervously.

Reed sighed and pulled out a hypodermic gun, snapping a vial of purplish serum into it and placing it against Robert's arm, looking him in the eye.

"I'll let you know." He said, pressing it into his skin and pulling the trigger. Robert gasped and let out a light groan as Reed quickly dismantled the gun and hastily stepped back, staring.

Minutes passed and nothing happened. Reed's assistants monitored him, adjusting things here and there. Robert sighed and looked around as best he could with his head strapped down.

"Should I be feeling any different?" he asked, coughing a little as his chest tightened. "Hey, I feel a little weird. Reed?" Robert took a deep breath as a sharp pain ripped through his chest. "Fuck, Reed I don't like-"

Several things happened at once. More pain slammed into him, his eyes rolled back into his head and he arched upwards. Robert then started convulsing, the machines around him beginning to beep wildly and Reed's assistants tried to keep up with them. Robert's muscles began spasming hard as he thrashed on the table, tugging at the metal fixings keeping him secured to the gurney, and he let out a roar of agony.

"Keep him hydrated!" Reed called to one of the other scientists as Robert's entire body began morphing. His arms and legs bulked and grew to the size of tree trunks, along with his neck, his head widening to fit and his chest swelling with muscles. The straps holding him down shattered as though made of glass and his arm swung wildly, catching one of the scientists and flinging him across the room. The other man instantly flew forwards and tried to secure Robert's arm again, only to join his co-worker on the ground on the other side of the room. Reed could only watch with nervous fascination as Robert's once small, lean build, changed to that of a great hulking super-being. Ripping his other limbs free of their binds, he roared again and jumped up from the gurney, the ground vibrating with the force of an earthquake as his feet hit it again.

From across the hall, Maria Hill smiled.

TBC