Chapter Notes
Poor Tony, he just wants to talk about science and magic and here I am, dumping more trauma on him...
Also; X-Men!
They will all learn about the Plan™!
Chapter 6: Talking, a lot of slightly uncomfortable talking
After that less-than-ideal start, I tried to rush on before Tony could decide I needed a stay at the mental hospital. I quickly made a little teal dragon-construct that I let fly above the table. Tony watched with an open mouth. Immediately drawn in he started to touch it, recoiling a bit when it was solid.
"JARVIS, are you getting this?"
"It does show up on camera, Sir. I cannot find any evidence for hologram technology.", came the answer from the ceiling.
"Tada!", I said, nervously fiddling with my hands on the table. I continued because I knew he was very much still listening.
"That was maybe not the best way to start this, but yeah. Maybe you noticed some stuff didn´t add up?"
"You mean like having a seemingly endless supply of Belgian hot chocolate? Or all the old books in dozens of different dead languages?", Tony interrupted without looking up. I chuckled.
"Yeah. I can´t really tell everything yet, but basically…"
I proceeded to tell him about the Masters of the Mystic Arts, about mutants and about magic. I explained Ree´s capabilities too, I just passed the ring of as a familial magical artefact though. Then I spoke about my plans of establishing a community for people with powers to protect them and about the accords. That led me to talk about shady organizations hunting mutants, for example SHIELD. I even showed him what I had found from the Index, SHIELDs assessment program for people with special abilities. How many of them were recruited, how many of those who remained civilians mysteriously disappeared soon after without a word to their SHIELD assigned handlers (I knew most of these disappearances to be Hydras fault).
He asked a lot (a lot, a lot) of questions about the ring and how magic works, so many that I had to promise I would answer them all another time. When I mentioned runes, we nearly lost track of the conversation entirely. Magic talk! Not that he would acknowledge it as magic. The whole "Magic is just science we don´t understand yet!" debate was in my near future too.
The rest of the time he was just listening silently.
"A super community, hm? And SHIELD? Never heard of them.", he said when I finished. Leaning back in my seat I sighed. Coulson had no opportunity to talk to him yet and they didn´t make any fuss during the investigation into Stane´s dealings. Too much attention from all sides, if I had to guess.
"Yeah, you wouldn´t have. I´m pretty sure they were pestering Pepper about you already though. They want to talk to you about how you got out of that cave. I´m sure they suspect you of being Ironman too. They want your tech, and they want Ironman.", I explained and showed him holograms of info I had collected about him and the Avengers Initiative.
"Interesting…", Tony mumbled while scrolling. I took a deep breath.
"They were founded after World War II, your dear old dad was heavily involved. Money, tech, etc. Apparently he didn´t want you be implicated though."
Tony grimaced at that.
"Probably didn´t trust me with that.", he said, and I could see the thought hurt him.
"Maybe he didn´t trust them with you. And he would have been right. SHIELD isn´t just shady, it´s also compromised."
"Compromised? By whom? The Russians?", he asked after looking up from the data. I laughed.
"No."
I threw up a new construct, a Hydra emblem and what evidence I had found of their existence. Even with Ree this stuff was hard to find. Hydra was careful. I had barely found any locations for Hydra bases, because in the end I was not a trained agent and Ree could only compensate for so much. Tony looked horrified. I had taken out the experimentation with human subjects, but this was still not a light read.
"Hydra?! What the fuck…"
"Yeah. And Tony? There is something else. I found this video. I think it´s gonna upset you a lot, but…"
Hesitantly I brought up the surveillance footage of the night his parents died. I stopped it though before you saw the Winter Soldier murder the Starks, just enough to show that it was not an accident. This, surprisingly, did not take a lot to find. It wasn´t even in Hydra, just the normal Shield data base. Which just made me dislike Fury and his bullshit even more.
Tony let out a choked sob. I stood up and went around the table to sit next to him. I put an arm around his shoulders and drew him against my chest. I tucked in his head under my chin and held him while his whole body shook with shock and grief.
"I´m sorry, I´m so sorry Kleiner."
I felt bad enough that some of my old language slipped through. He let out a strangled "why" and I took it as sign to explain what happened.
"From what I found; your father was working on the super soldier serum. He was transporting his samples in the back of the car. Hydra caught the news and send their best asset to retrieve the samples. That was the Winter Soldier. It gets even more twisted. That Winter Soldier? He was a soldier imprisoned and experimented on during the war. Howard knew him too; they had served together with the Howling Commandos. They just wanted the serum and they couldn´t let your father live after that."
"I was mad at him all this time and he wasn´t even- He didn´t even-", Tony broke up, to emotional to form words. I just tightened my grip.
That ended the conversation for the day. Tony eventually fled into his lab and only emerged the next morning. He looked horrible. Dark circles under his eyes and withdrawn posture. He asked to look over the data on Hydra and I let him. We sat down at the table again and I made him a hot chocolate. I was relieved when he actually drank from the cup.
Occasionally he asked questions, but the rest of the day was silent. I took the time to study. In the evening he disappeared in his lab again. I told JARVIS to wake me if it seemed needed and left him alone.
The next day was better. The inventor asked an increasing number of questions about the workings of magic.
I waited another day before starting on the topic that had led me to telling him about all of this to begin with. We were sitting at the same table again. I let out a breath and hyped myself up.
"I told you about my ring. One of the functions of my ring is a sort of medical scan.", I started. I made eye contact and noticed a minute flinch when the implications of this settled in. That confirmed my theory that Tony had noticed the heavy metal poisoning.
"You probably know why I´m telling you this. The palladium in your arc reactor is slowly killing you. We need to find an alternative. Do you hear me? WE."
I levelled him with a determent glare to show how serious I was about this. Tony sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
"Even if you help, what can you do? I´ve already tested the viability of every existing element. The palladium is irreplaceable, and I would not survive the operation if we tried to take the shrapnel out.", Tony explained in a defeated tone. "Or can you… magic something about this?"
I grinned.
"In a way. I´m gonna help you help yourself. Originally SHIELD would have tried to get an in with you through this, but I magicked some information for you. Please don´t ask how.", I told him. I was hoping to gloss over my impossible knowledge of the future by ways of the almighty excuse of magic. Let´s just hope he doesn´t look to close.
"So: first up; SHIELD is keeping some stuff of your dad´s from you, nothing ground-breaking but there is also some footage where he is trying to be decent dad-so that would be nice to get back. Howard also throws some clues in about an element he discovered, one he didn´t have the tech to synthesize yet. That´s what we need. Key is the model of the first Stark expo. I´m sure we can find that somewhere. And we need to build a particle accelerator. Well, this time with we I mean you because it is kind of important that it works.", I chuckled sheepishly.
At this point Tony looked a bit overwhelmed.
"A new element? What?", he sputtered. Then his brain rebooted and he got excited. Very excited.
The next few weeks were very busy. After the model had been found by an exasperated Pepper, who in the midst of planning the reopening of the Stark expo just looked incredibly done with the world, contractors came and went.
The remodeling was done. Tony got to work.
When he changed the reactor, I scanned him continuedly. Everything worked. JARVIS and I still forced him to drink the awful chloro-whaterever-shakes until there was no trace of heavy metal left though.
It was February now and I started to plan the rest of the year. In May the expo opened – I wanted to be here for that. Thor´s exile and the fight between the Abomination and Hulk would happen this year, that much I knew. If possible, I would establish myself as "concerned" with alien activity to establish some report with both Thor and SHIELD. Containing the collateral damage of Harlem on the other hand would be my introduction to the public. Tony and I agreed we should keep our alter egos separate for now to avoid suspicion.
Of course, I didn´t remember any dates. It didn´t look all that cold though.
All in all, I was confident that I had the next two months free. Time to meet the prof.
A week later I pulled in before the big gate of Xavier´s School for Gifted Youngsters. I had called ahead and arranged a meeting under the guise of SI´s charity work. Tony had approved after I told him my plan. He even lent me on of his sport cars – I couldn´t say no to that. Before I left, I warned him of Vanko and his thirst for revenge. I had no idea how or even if Vanko would still attack Tony, considering it wasn´t public knowledge that the billionaire was Ironman and he wouldn´t drive in Monaco now that he wasn´t dying. Well, we´ll see.
Exiting the car, I smoothed out my standard teal suit. I was greeted at the gate by a slightly constipated looking Cyclops with sunglasses, who introduced himself as Scott Summers. He led me towards Xavier´s office while commenting on the parts of the school we were passing through.
I listened with half an ear and looked around attentively when I spotted a little girl peeking around the corner. She had an obvious mutation, two little horns protruding from her head. She startled badly when she noticed I had seen her. It seemed likely that she was not supposed to be here because of my visit but became curious. She froze up and stared at me with big eyes. I couldn´t resist.
I let my eyes light up teal and constructed a bigger version of her horns on my forehead. I winked at her before letting them disappear again when Sommers turned around to look at me.
He saw the girl too and let out a hiss, hurriedly walking up to her.
"And you are not supposed to be here. Are you wearing your costume from theatre practice? Better get back quickly before you worry your teacher.", he said, trying desperately to cover up the mistake. The girl was still staring at me with eyes full of wonder. When she came out of her stagger, she started jumping up and down excitedly and ran up to me.
Summers was totally baffled, not having expected her to react that way. Also, he seemed a bit overwhelmed in the face of a giddy child.
I on the other hand had huge smile on my face. I opened my suit jacket and kneeled down to pick her up. Standing up I shifted her weight on my hip and smiled at her. She was a bit big for this, but her happy expression was worth it.
"Show me again, I wanna see them!", she exclaimed and clapped her hands. My smile became mischievous. I constructed the same horns as before, ignoring Summers startled gasp. Then I changed them slightly to deer horns, adding ears. The girl squealed and reached out to touch the ears. I animated them to twitch like real ones.
"Well, if this isn´t a surprise.", intoned the calm voice of Prof. Xavier. He came towards us in his iconic wheelchair looking very much like James McAvoy. I had wondered about that.
I assumed Summer´s panic had alerted him. I wondered if the powerful mutant was nervous that he couldn´t read my mind. He shouldn´t even be able to perceive me. Even without the ring I would have been protected.
Turns out sorcerers weren´t all that keen on letting people manipulate their minds. Most ways to protect themselves focused on magical manipulation; they were easily adopted though. This is where my rune-studies came in handy. Needless to say, Domi, Tony and I all sported a set of runes somewhere on our bodies. Pepper got some new jewelry. Just to be safe.
I turned towards the telepath and smiled.
"Hello Professor, we have a lot to talk about.", I said. I absentmindedly made a butterfly for my new little friend before she could become nervous.
Handling children can be difficult, but handling children while being able to magic glowing shiny things? Easy mode.
I´m sure to regret that statement.
"I´m starting to see that.", Xavier mused. He looked fascinated at my construct. "Let´s go to my office. And if you could set Lara down again? She really does have a lesson right now and her teacher is already quite frazzled."
I did as asked, much to Lara´s disappointment. She pouted for a moment. With quick thinking I took the bow in her hair and transformed it into another butterfly. Then I put some simple orange glowing runes on the wings to animate my creation and tethered it to the girl. (I might have experimented a bit in my free time to make myself a realistic little dragon – I mean how could I not. Runes are awesome man.) The butterfly landed on Lara´s head and she exclaimed in excitement. When the Professor cleared his throat, she smiled and waved, shouting her goodbyes to "Mister Deer-man".
"Hm, Deer-man huh? I´ve had worse nicknames.", I joked. "Lead the way!"
Cyclops didn´t look all that comfortable with the idea of me being alone with the professor. Paranoid bastard.
He made to speak up, but I interrupted him: "I would have nothing against bringing in people you trust, it might even be beneficial to have them hear what I have to say."
Twenty minutes later, Charles, as he had asked me to call him, introduced everyone in the room. I actually knew all of them under one name or another.
Cyclops, Jean, Dr. Hank McCoy (in all his blue and furry glory), Logan and Ororo. I couldn´t decide who looked more unwelcoming, Summers with his scowl disapproval, Storm with her distrusting protectiveness or Logan with his normal face. But if anything, living with Tony had improved my pokerface immensely.
The professor then invited me to speak on my reason for coming.
I breathed in slowly to give me moment to think about how I would approach this.
"As you have noticed by now, I know about mutants. And before you ask, no, I am not one. My powers are of the magical variety.", I explained. To prove my point, I first made some sparks in the air with a wave of my hand and then I pulled a cup of hot chocolate out of nowhere.
A lot of raised eyebrows on that one.
Xavier was predictably the least surprised. Hank looked like he wanted to drag me into his lab and ask me a thousand questions. Typical scientist.
"Before I explain more, what do you know about SHIELD and Hydra?"
Charles answered: "We know of mutants who have been approached by an apparent government agency that goes by SHIELD. Many disappeared, which is why we try to keep away from them. I thought Hydra was defunct after the end World War II though?"
I nodded, this was about what I had expected.
"It´s a bit more complicated than that. Hydra just went underground. SHIELD has been operating since the war, their founding members were closely connected to the Howling Commandos. Hydra infiltrated them over the years, which explains the missing mutants. Hydra has been recruiting mutants and experimenting on them for decades now. That isn´t to say that SHIELD is harmless, they haven´t been very lenient with mutants they deem dangerous either and they are probably the least regulated part of the government. The reason why the existence of mutants isn´t public yet is largely owed to secretive government agencies not wanting to give up control. You can see the pattern in the abductions."
I could practically feel the outrage in the room rise. Especially Logan looked like he would go on a rampage any moment. Oh yeah, I somehow totally forgot that he had been experimented on too. Oops.
"Now even if we went in and got out all captive mutants that would be just a temporary fix. Hell, even if both SHIELD and Hydra were eradicated, there would be another organization or agency to take their place eventually. Not to mention the fact that this is an issue worldwide. Of course, going to the public like this would result in a lot of fear mongering and people going after mutants even more aggressively. So, this why I made a plan™."
I proceeded to tell them nearly all of it. About the Masters of the Mystic Arts and how they would be on our side when it came to presenting a united front. About Ironman and Tony Stark. About how Tony and I would work together with other heroes to try to desensitize the public to the idea of people with powers. About how I wanted to collaborate with the X-Men to raid Hydra bases. About the accords that were already being written.
"I should mention that I´m talking about legislation here, it´s still going to be years before we are anywhere near ready here. That´s about it. Do you have any questions?", I finished and watched everyone in the room closely.
Some had been reacting with more skepticism than others. Summers looked stony (although that could have been just a case of permanent bitch face), Jean was definitely the most hopeful and Logan had one hell of a poker face, I couldn´t read him at all. The Prof had a small smile which I counted as a win.
Hank and Summers asked a lot of questions about the accords and the raids I had proposed, not all of which I could answer. I gave them the contact data for Murdock though and encouraged them to speak with the lawyer.
When the questions ended, Xavier spoke up: "I asked one of our teachers to entertain you for a bit while we deliberate, if you would give us some time?"
I waved my hand.
"Sure, sure. Take your time."
He smiled at me again and there was a hard knock on the door.
"Come in.", Charles called out. The door opened to very big, very metallic and very enthusiastic Colossus.
"Hello Professor!", the Russian exclaimed in cheer.
My brain took a second to catch up with what was happening.
Shit, I forgot about Deadpool.
Chapter End Notes
More people! Lots and lots of people, that I don´t know how to write! :D
Poor Al is trying really hard not blunder another talk here.
