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Fire to the Rain
When the truth about the origins, reasons, and success of the most successful villain team to form during the first era of superheroes was finally known, the entire world just . . . stopped.
Actually, so did most of the galaxy and a good chunk of the wider universe.
To be fair, the revelation of one of their identities was so shocking, so unexpected, so completely and utterly wrong, that even the host of heaven’s angels reached for The Milky Way Playbook, certain this was just the best prank ever pranked in the history of said galaxy.
The other identity shocked about half the population, though it wasn’t for the reason most people would have thought, while the other half was gleefully (and fearfully, though they tried — and failed — to hide it) vindicated.
The fact that the five most vocal, hateful, malicious offenders of the ‘I told you so!’ half were currently sprawled on the ground in front of a decapitated Thanos, trussed up like the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey, complete with plucked feathers and gagged for flavor, didn’t stop three of them from shouting invectives, curses, and what were probably really uninspiring ancestral insults, muffled as they were by the poor man gags fashioned from the shirt of Thanos’ late, unlamented second in command.
No.
For them, Tony Stark’s knowing, triumphant smirk was not a surprise.
Peter Parker’s matching expression was almost enough to shock them all into silence.
Almost.
The world would end before Steve Rogers didn’t have a self-righteous lecture ready and Clint Barton could not keep a snide comment behind his teeth with a gun to his head, a gag in his mouth, and his enraged ex-wife standing on his nuts (it was a video clip for the ages; the Iron Fam watched it at least once a week).
Natasha Romanova wasn’t any less outraged — or gobsmacked — but she possessed some discipline and also the ability to accept reality, so she simply struggled to a sitting position on the ground where Peter had tossed her, bound and gagged and, ability to adapt aside, a hell of a lot more surprised than she should be.
Then again, self-reflection was not one of her skills and she utterly lacked the ability to see past the nose on her face, so she’d swallowed Peter’s ‘aw, shucks, you’re the Black Widow and I’m just a kid from Queens’ act from the very beginning and that was that. Honestly, though, Stark was the one who’d truly stunned her. Never in a million years would she have thought that Tony Stark, of all people, could successfully fool her. She’d never thought he was a hero, of course, but not once did she credit him with the intelligence or the subtlety to be an honest-to-God villain.
Bruce Banner didn’t quite know what to think. He wasn’t as surprised as people assumed, but he hadn’t known, either. But there had long been something about Peter Parker that had caught and kept both the Hulk’s attention and wary respect and he was well aware of Tony’s . . . not to be cliché, but Dark Side really was the best description.
Sam Wilson had no thoughts at all. His brain had done the full-on human equivalent of ‘blue screen of death’ and nothing could or would happen until he got rebooted.
(Nebula deigned to provide that service via a sharp whack to the forehead with the blade of her sword; Stark and his sons had told her their story during the eleven-day wait for the Mad Titan’s arrival, and she needed only a single nod from any of them to gut their enemies, ‘The Avengers’, like the stinky, inedible fish they were. Unfortunately, all three men wanted their deeply despised enemies alive to hear the truth of their downfall, so she was forced to content herself with some light maiming and the effective use of her favorite ‘fuck around and find out, bitches’ expression)
Stunned disbelief and/or self-righteous vindication notwithstanding, it did explain how and why the Avengers were so often thwarted when they really shouldn’t have been: Stark had clearly put Parker’s genius — and Ned Leeds' — to work for him. He had subverted the kids so successfully that even Nick Fury was reluctantly — and furiously — impressed.
Only . . . that wasn’t remotely how it happened.
Since they were in New York, the heart of the family’s power seat, it was child’s play to get the bodies of Thanos and his followers cremated (Wong didn’t even lift a non-existent eyebrow at Peter’s request), the Rogue Avengers tossed back in their cells, which were now equipped with big screen TVs — after all, nobody wanted them to miss the detailed explanation about how stupid, gullible, and ineffective, not to mention inconsequential, they truly were — and a live broadcast set up in less than four hours.
Pepper Potts ran point, while Happy, Rhodes, and Ned settled in to provide both backstory and support as needed.
After all, they’d all known.
And helped.
With malice aforethought, meticulous planning, vindictively satisfied enjoyment, and — in Ned’s case — an evil cackle that really was impressive.
Hey, Emperor Palpatine had to be useful for something.
“Hello, world. You all know who I am,” Tony began, loftily ignoring the eyerolls from his crew. Posse? Gang?
Well, whichever. The synchronized rolling of their eyes was childish and didn’t deserve his attention.
“This is my son, Peter. Let me preface this explanation with the ridiculously obvious warning that still needs to be said because you people are morons at best and Steve Rogers stupid at worst: if a single, solitary individual out there so much as thinks about harming my son or trying to use him to get to me, I will skin you alive, drop you in a salt pit, and eventually set you on fire. And unless you’ve been in a coma for the last four years — or are Steve Rogers and his band of asslickers — you know that I will do it. Our days of so-called ‘villainy’ are over, but I protect my own. And Peter, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey, and Ned are mine.”
“And mine,” Peter chimed in, leaning against his father’s side and taking Pepper’s hand while his uncles and his best friend took up obnoxious protective stances behind them. They looked like a photoshoot for The Magnificent 7, though thankfully none of them realized it.
Then his eyes darkened and his face went stone-cold serious and he raised his head so he could look down his nose at the entire world and quietly said, “And I’m Spiderman. I won’t be nearly as nice as Iron Man. Just ask Wilson Fisk. He can’t talk anymore, what with not having a tongue or lips, but he can nod once he stops shaking. It only lasts for a few minutes, so be smart with your questions. Now, we’ll tell you what happened and why, but our family is off-limits. Although, if someone could round up Thaddeus Ross for us and make sure he can’t mouth off, that would earn you a favor or a boon from us. Very little will be off the table.”
“Absolutely,” Tony agreed stretching his arm behind Peter’s head to take Pepper’s elbow and give it a gentle squeeze. “Just don’t kill him, please. Maimed is perfectly fine, but America deserves the closure of watching him be legally executed for his crimes against his country and her people.”
Pepper gave her husband and son a tender smile, which promptly iced over when she looked in the camera. “Call this number when you have him safely secured and he’ll be retrieved. For the official record: any attempt to use this as a trap for Tony or Peter or any of our people will be met with immediate, lethal force. And we won’t ask questions later.”
At least three thousand people swallowed very hard and began to rethink their life choices, while the rest either fell head-over-heels in love or swore themselves to eternal celibacy.
With a careless ease that stunned everyone who knew him, outside the people in that room, Peter slouched in his chair and with absolutely no preamble started talking.
“It started during the 2012 invasion. I was with my aunt, who had raised me for four years because my parents died when I was six, and we were inside one of the designated ‘safe zones’, but we were the last ones who would fit, so we were at the barrier. Everything was fine even though watching the battle was terrifying — but then here came The Great Black Widow,” he spat. His whole demeanor changed so fast, Happy actually flinched, and the rage-filled pain he still felt six years later was throbbing in his voice now.
“It was like watching in slow motion, you know? She was showing off and making sure everyone watched her being badass while killing aliens with their own weapons in a skintight catsuit. Only, see, she was making sure to throw them dramatically away and shoot them mid-air instead of a headshot and dropping them right there. And I was standing next to my aunt, because my police officer uncle was working, when one of her ‘look at meeeee!’ shots missed the alien — since she didn’t bother to look where she was aiming, because she’s the Great Black Widow — and hit May. Right in the stomach. And before I could even process that, the alien she missed after throwing him landed on top us. And she still didn’t kill him, because she was already gone.”
As if he knew how quiet the world had just gotten, both in shock and out of respect, Peter bowed his head and silently grieved again the loss of the fierce, wonderful woman who had loved him so much and died because of the hubris and arrogance of someone who should have been better.
His family closed in and wrapped him in a group hug, ignoring the still-active broadcast. FRIDAY didn’t understand why JARVIS was allowing the world to witness her beloved human brother’s pain, but she trusted her older brother’s promise to explain later and went back to monitoring all the active social media feeds, both public and private, that she could get her vicious hands and eyes on. Nobody was going to hurt her family while she drew breath.
Or, well, the AI equivalent.
It took several minutes for Peter to recover, but when he raised his head again, even Natasha Romanova flinched back.
“You know who saved everyone else in that safety zone, including me?” he asked in a quiet voice that made everyone on the planet flinch again. “Iron Man. He saw her show off and miss, but he was too far away to stop it. He still did what he could and came over to help us because Romanova couldn’t be bothered. She never even looked back to make sure she killed the thing. She just shook her ass while she hit him with his own miniature flying motorcycle, shot an alien weapon she didn’t know how to use in his general direction, and took off. She missed both times, but hey! Her boobs jiggled while she shook her ass and her little trick looked impressive. I found out later that she’d pulled that same stunt four more times and only killed one alien — and two people. Not that she knows that, because she’s never once showed her face or answered a single question about her actions. Iron Man, though, he saw what she did and peeled off to help us. On the way, he took out 23 more aliens, including four directly in front of her. He told me later that by taking away her immediate targets, maybe she’d actually rethink her strategy. Spoiler alert: she didn’t.”
A long pause ensued while Peter took several deep breaths and allowed his parents to silently soothe him while, again, they all ignored their enthralled audience.
“So that started it, really,” he finally said, looking up through his bangs. “I already had a massive science crush on Tony Stark because he’s Tony Stark, you know, but that day, I fell hard for Iron Man. He killed the alien that Romanova killed my aunt with, apologized that he couldn’t do more, and went right back to fighting. But he tried hard to stay in the areas where civilians had been sent because between that arrogant bitch and Rogers’ inability to throw his stupid shield without hitting a building or a car in the process, there was a lot of unnecessary risk, injuries, damages, and death. A lot. The Hulk didn’t cause a third as much damage as they did. And, of course, we all know that Rogers doesn’t give a damn about people or collateral damage. As long as he gets to be the hero and save the day, everything’s great and we’re just mean and ungrateful for being upset that he killed someone we loved,” he spat, eyes burning with the grief-fueled rage that he would carry for life.
“After that awful day, it was just me and my uncle Ben. For two years, we were . . . we were okay. We missed May like crazy, but we were okay. We were recovering and not struggling financially because of the Maria Stark Foundation. Ben even helped me mostly forgive Romanova, because she didn’t kill Aunt May on purpose. And I was ten, you know? It was hard to understand that, because even though she didn’t mean to hurt us, she still did. But after a while, it was — Ben kept hammering that point home and I started to accept it, if only to stay sane. It was an accident. A completely avoidable accident, but still: she didn’t do it on purpose. But then the Dipshit Duo decided to dump the entire contents of SHIELD online. After unencrypting those files, because calling Tony Stark or Reed Richards or anyone with a working knowledge of computers would have meant that Rogers wouldn’t be the hero and Romanova wouldn’t be . . . well, whatever she thinks she is. So they just dropped everything for the world to see.”
He stopped again, breathing hard, and silently accepted the Red Bull that Ned just as silently offered. Nobody spoke while he drained it in three hard swallows, though Pepper’s narrow-eyed glare at Ned promised something seriously unpleasant if he did that again.
“So, fun fact: my uncle’s name was Ben Parker. Did you know that there was a SHIELD agent named Ben Parker, too? Apparently, he was a rock star for them.”
Even Wilson Fisk and Adrian Toomes cringed. It was obvious to a dead man where this was going and so many things started to make sense.
“Yeah. I won’t horrify you with the details,” Peter said so acerbically that his family winced. “It was . . . bad. And I ended up in foster care. It was not a good thing for me personally, but it did give me the basic tools I needed to start planning my revenge. You see, because I loved Ben and respected him, I let myself pretend to believe that Romanova wasn’t a bad person, and she was in the middle of a massive fight when she killed May. But then she and Rogers just blatantly, carelessly, ruined the lives of several thousand people because they think they’re better than everyone else and I couldn’t pretend any more that she was a good person at heart, because she isn’t. When she told the world that not only did she not regret dumping all that information, but it was justified and necessary and nobody could be mad at her because she was so important we’d need her to save the world again . . . I snapped. I could not allow her to keep walking around like she hadn’t destroyed my life. Twice,” Peter almost whispered, looking at his knees for a few seconds before staring his audience down again.
(The rage blazing behind indescribable pain made even Clint Barton suck in a breath.
Romanova and Rogers were unmoved.
They’d done what they had to do)
“I just couldn’t. Because of her arrogance and her complete lack of a single scrap of respect for anybody, I lost my second set of parents, and both of their murders were completely, totally preventable,” he explained, sounding so reasonable that Wilson came within a deep breath of peeing himself. “If she’d just taken two seconds to use her brain instead of her boobs, my life wouldn’t have been left in ruins, or anyone else’s. And then she fucking laughed at my pain, at our pain, and told us that we’d beg her to come back and save us the next time she decided to screw everyone over so she could pretend she’s important. She knows that she isn’t, you see, but she’s so egotistical that she can’t mentally accept that knowledge. So I started planning. I dug deep into the data she so gleefully threw online and found all sorts of interesting information while Ned hacked records and servers and systems — his mother lost her job because Rogers used the building as a ricochet point instead of changing his stance and turning his torso about halfway around. And he never mentioned it, either,” he explained as Ned nodded. His own eyes were dark with the same grief and fury Peter suffered, but it was his emotionless face that made people swallow.
Peter nudged his Man in the Chair with the back of his head and then continued on a deep breath.
“His favorite cousin died when Rogers dropped the aircraft on the river. When he didn’t even bother to come to the hearing, Ned told me he was in. We were going to destroy them before they killed us, too. So he hacked and downloaded and I watched every shitty video I could find of their fights and missions . . . I had no idea what we were going to do with that information yet, you have to understand. But we were going to destroy her. Destroy them. She and Rogers were going to understand that actions have consequences and that you can’t just kill people and shrug it off because it didn’t hurt you.”
He swallowed and sniffed hard, straightened in his seat, and steadily continued. “We were gathering data like madmen while trying to figure out how to hurt Romanova and Rogers without hurting Tony or even Barton, because Tony saved me and Barton hadn’t done anything to us when . . . well, when Tony found us. We had no idea he’d been watching us, but after four months, he reached out and offered to help. The thing is, neither of us realized who it was and Tony had no idea I was the kid he’d saved that day.”
“Small world, right?” Tony suddenly interjected, startling everyone but Happy. “Anyway, after a few days of just sharing information and them impressing the hell out of me, I asked what they really wanted, what their ultimate goal was. And it was heartbreakingly simple: they wanted Rogers and Romanova to pay for their sins, their crimes, and their carelessness. That was a goal I was 100% in favor of, because those assholes screwed me over royally, too, and not because I had Ellis riding my ass about ‘letting’ them do something that fucking stupid.”
He paused, twisted to look behind him, and gave Ned a proud smile. “Ned kindly showed our esteemed president that no, I had absolutely nothing to do with it, which is why the whole dumbass thing happened to begin with — and he did it by downloading and compiling, in chronological order, every video and audio recording that proved not only did I not know, but Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Braindead deliberately excluded me. And he locked it on slo-mo so there was no possible way to miss anything or misconstrue something.”
Tony paused again, eyes narrowing just a tiny bit. His conclusion to that minor tangent made everyone swallow hard, but oddly, few people had sympathy for the former president.
“Ellis is really fortunate that I didn’t have time to fully make him aware of his arrogant stupidity. Actually, he really needs to thank me for only having to apologize to me in front of his entire Cabinet instead of an international press conference, which Pepper was in the process of setting up when life happened and derailed that kind of extracurricular.”
Silence.
“But hey: I’m generous like that.”
Deeper silence.
Until Rhodes couldn’t take it any longer and started to snicker. When the others turned to look at him, he waved a hand and managed to explain, albeit through sounds that were dangerously close to giggles, “I just remembered how Ned provided the timestamp of every single time they refused to contact you and Pepper wrote every one of them in his apology speech and watching his face when he had to say, ‘at 1:17 and 22 seconds AM, former agent Romanova scoffed at the idea of contacting Tony Stark and refused to do so’ was priceless.”
Those shared memories (and there were about 32 of them) sent the rest of the room into matching hysterics and Ned was pulled into a long, firm side-hug by Tony, who loved him fiercely but wasn’t moving from Peter’s side for anything but the next apocalypse. Being of the same mind, Ned just hugged his other dad back and let himself enjoy the love and respect from the people he himself loved and respected so much.
It took about ten or so minutes for the laughter to die down, with FRIDAY making a note to show that particular apology after dinner that night, but Tony finally turned to the camera again, eyes dark and serious now.
And the world held its breath.
“So: we started looking at ways to cause trouble for Rogers and Romanova. It was harder than you’d think, because they didn’t do anything after burning SHIELD and neither of them had any kind of credit rating or whatnot. She was a mediocre spy who did a decent job at hiding her assets from everyone else, but also didn’t pay taxes or have a mortgage or anything like that. Rogers doesn’t know how to hide his assets, but he also doesn’t know what income taxes are, so he just never bothered to pay them. And when I set the IRS on him, he ignored them. Which, really, is impressive because it’s hard to ignore the IRS. But then the assholes started looking for something. And Peter, bless his pattern-minded little heart, figured it out after their third trip: they were looking for HYDRA bases.”
A pause ensued. People swallowed hard again and really hated that they didn’t know why.
“And I had the complete list, because unlike Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Braindead, I know computers, programming, and data handling. After Ellis apologized, I accepted his request to sort out SHIELD’s files and was able to put names and faces with the corrupt organization they belonged to and some progress was made in slowing HYDRA down. So I had the list of their hideouts, bases, unused bunkers, and places of interest. Since Rogers and Romanova and sometimes Wilson were so interested in those same places, Ned and Peter suggested I send a suit out first and raid all of them of any data they might have, then start feeding those useless locations to the Dipshit Duo.”
Happy snorted at that, earning him a playful shove from Rhodes, along with, “Hey, that nickname was your idea. And it’s perfect. Own your awesomeness, Hogan.”
Pepper, Tony, and Peter ignored this byplay way too easily, which made a fair bit of their audience grin in appreciation.
And then it got serious again.
“But while I was planning that,” Tony continued, slipping an arm around Peter again, “Peter kept sorting through the data dump. And he found out that a lot of innocent people had been hurt, imprisoned, or killed by HYDRA and SHIELD. He also discovered to his horror how many criminals were on the payroll — including the one who murdered one of his elementary school teachers. Turns out that was a SHIELD-sanctioned mission. And suddenly, we had a cause. Better, we had actual means. We could start bringing these people to real, genuine justice — because it was clear that too much of the justice system is corrupt. Not everyone, no, I wouldn’t even say the majority. But there are more than enough judges and cops who will do anything for money and power. One of their classmates’ dad was killed by a mugger who’d been arrested and released eighteen times for the same crime, and another one’s sister lost a kidney and a leg to a professional carjacker. The would-thief took three bullets to the torso, but if any of those damned judges and cops had actually done their job and locked her up, it wouldn’t have happened at all.”
Ned stepped forward for the first time. His voice was astonishingly clear and steady and everyone who knew him outside of that room was beyond astonished at it.
“Nothing lethal,” he began, a faint smile touching his lips when Rhodes squeezed his shoulder. “But permanent and debilitating . . . we had to. And for a little while, we did. It’s hard to be a professional burglar or even a standard pickpocket when you can’t walk. If you don’t have a tongue, you can’t lie to people and cheat them out of their money. But then we ran into something that shouldn’t have surprised us: there are some people who can’t and won’t be stopped, no matter what happens. People who organize, run, and participate in child sex trafficking aren’t going to stop just because they got shot or went to prison. We know that because we saw it happen twice. Both of the masterminds made connections and networks and within two years they were well on the way to heading a new kidnapping ring.”
“I took care of it,” Tony interjected, taking Ned’s free hand and bringing it to his own shoulder. “I wasn’t nearly as surprised at the depravity that SHIELD had been sheltering, but I was caught off-guard at quickly my boys found it. Little data gremlins,” he grumbled to himself, drawing a matched set of impish grins from the boys in question before Peter grew serious again.
“It worked,” he stated, pride in each letter. “People noticed pretty quickly, but since we also left proof of their crimes, we didn’t get a lot of pushback or grief from the populace. The NYPD threw a fit, because all of a sudden, a lot of their bribe money was drying up, never mind how bad they suddenly looked. I mean, we got three human traffickers in the first year. I don’t even know how many serial rapists we found and the number of drug rings in New York is horrifying. We got two serial killers the cops didn’t tell anyone about.”
He stopped, looking vaguely ill, and Ned seamlessly picked up his thoughts. “And not once did their victims or their loved ones have to watch the man who murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter or got an entire high school hooked on hard drugs get off because of a corrupt judge. Because of us, they never had to worry about that person doing it again — to them or to anyone else.”
“That’s how I found out,” Rhodes interjected, startling everyone on both sides of the camera. “My niece had just started college at NYU when the Black Rose gang tried to abduct her. She was one of the first people they were able to save before anything happened — and the second she described who, or rather what, saved her, I knew it was Tony.” He leaned forward and glared into the camera, making sure not a person on earth could misunderstand him. “My best friend and my nephews kept my 18-year-old, never even been kissed niece, out of the hands of one of the biggest sex trafficking rings in the country. You better believe I cheered them on when they killed everyone involved that they could find.”
Pride, respect, and remembered fear throbbed in his final words and he went quiet for a few seconds before sniffing hard and glaring at the world again. “Once I realized who that vigilante group was, I started doing my own research and it didn’t take long to realize that Tony had become this . . . a different kind of superhero. So I started actively running interference with the Air Force and when I came across the kind of corruption he was handling, I’d make sure he found it.”
Happy snorted at that and gave the resulting looks of surprise a scowl. “Thanks for mentioning the out and out corruption. Pete and Ned did a hell of a job finding that, too. I didn’t know it was possible for that many judges to give up their seat of power to save their worthless lives. The business execs weren’t a surprise; it’s sad how many of them don’t have a single upright bone in their body, but not surprising at all. But we only targeted the ones who actively hurt people. The extortioners, blackmailiers, embezzlers, we gave their info to cops and judges we were reasonably sure we could trust. And if we were wrong, then those bastards got a personal visit. Either way, they were no longer allowed to commit their crimes. The ones who used their position and connections to fund drug rings, gun running, trafficking . . . well. As always, we handled them with prejudice.”
“And we do have evidence and proof of every one of their misdeeds. All of it was converted to paper so it could be notarized and stored away, to be used as comparison with the digital files.”
Pepper took over at that point, blue eyes flashing as she looked the world in the face and found it lacking.
“Also, I want to be very clear: not a single individual outside of Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanova was targeted for personal reasons. That condition was one of the first limitations Tony and Peter and Ned put on themselves and they had no problem allowing us to double-check. So the few times one of their searches led to a personal connection, it was instantly handed off. If they needed our kind of justice, they were turned over to Rhodes. If not, it was immediately given to law enforcement; they didn’t do a second of additional research once the personal connection was confirmed. Our actions weren’t about ‘we can rule the world’,” she then informed the world in question, earning emphatic nods of agreement from every one of her boys.
“None of us needs or wants that headache, nor are we that arrogant or egotistical,” she continued, her gaze somehow getting even sharper with anger. “Yes, we all know what too many of you think about Tony, but this is your official notice: fuck what you think. If you can’t be bothered to do your own research and find out the actual facts instead of what a small group of people tells you, even when you know they’re liars, then you aren’t worth the brain cell it takes to consider you. But then, Steve Rogers and his group of murderous Yes Men knew Tony personally for years but refused to see who he really is because they needed a scapegoat and punching bag. As long as Tony allowed it, they pushed every ounce of blame and responsibility on him.”
Little embers of fire were starting to lick at her lips, so Tony caught them in a quick kiss and grinned smugly at the exasperated groans surrounding him on all sides.
“Oh, hush,” he playfully chided the group. “You’re just jealous that your women can’t literally set the world on fire.”
As that was true, they exchanged mildly disgruntled looks and then nodded, and Tony’s grin widened for just a second before he took control of the conversation again.
“I’m sure a lot of you are wondering about possible civilian casualties, but we went to considerable effort to ensure there weren't any. More than once, we had to scrap a plan or postpone a raid because the risk of injury to innocent people was just too high or someone showed up unexpectedly," he informed the world in general and two specific people in a heated voice, eyes blazing with a cold, explicit meaning that was utterly lost on those two specific people. "But that's because we understand that there's more to life than finishing a mission. And people are never acceptable 'collateral damage'."
The disgust in his voice made certain people in cells that were specially-equipped with big screen TVs feel actual shame rise in their throats. It did not, however, have any effect on two specific people.
"I'm sure several of you are also wondering why we didn’t send the survivors of Romanova’s betrayal after her, but she isn’t actually stupid when it comes to her own survival, so she went to ground with Rogers and Wilson and stayed there for several months. Then they started looking for James Barnes and not being remotely subtle about it, so I was able to feed them the list of HYDRA locations we wanted them to find. We did it because it kept them out of trouble and from hurting anyone else since we knew perfectly well those locations were cleaned out and empty and out of the way. It also frustrated the hell out of them, which is always a plus.”
“We also had much more dangerous people to worry about,” Ned said over Tony’s shoulder, grinning when the man yelped softly at finding him so close. “Yeah, those two are a human wrecking ball in the middle of a fight and neither of them actually thinks that anyone but them and their favorites are worth caring about, but they weren’t running or funding slave rings or sex trafficking groups or drugs or guns. So we put our focus on the immediate threats instead of the toddlers who believe they’re human GI Joe dolls. Oh, please,” he scoffed when everyone but Pepper choked at that. “Romanova isn’t nearly pretty enough to be Barbie and she sure as hell isn’t that smart.”
Rhodes lost it and collapsed in his chair, howling with laughter and squeezing Ned’s shoulder in wordless approval and appreciation of his well-made point.
Being the queen she was, Pepper ignored them all and brought Ned’s slightly-derailed train of thought back on track.
“Exactly. And I’m proud to report that our efforts have borne considerable fruit. The number of abductions has dropped more than 90% and gun running operations are close behind. Even the drug rings tend to be newcomers who think they’re clever enough to outsmart all of us. Naturally, they aren’t, but we aren’t complaining. We had an excellent system in place and things went well for four years. Even the ULTRON situation was contained, thanks in large part to Peter and Ned, who didn’t have to deal directly with Rogers or Thor and so weren’t infected by their idiocy or that mind-raping woman’s assault, which is why she and her equally insane brother died — which, for the record, Rogers took as a personal insult because, AND I QUOTE, ‘they were just misguided kids fighting for their country’.”
Her anger was almost a visible thing, but Ned took her shoulders and urged her to lean back against him and she calmed quickly.
“For the record,” she stated, staring down seven specific people, “nobody in that entire worthless group apologized to Tony. Not for their actions, not for their behavior, and not for their arrogant, uninformed, biased assumptions — assumptions that not only could have killed him but also put the Earth as a planet in genuine danger of being destroyed. If Tony wasn’t a brilliant engineer and if he hadn’t had Peter and Ned’s background support . . .”
She delicately shuddered, eyes dark with the memory, and quietly finished, “God only knows what would have happened.”
In his cell, Bruce Banner cringed and accepted the extremely apt label of ‘coward’ he’d just been given. He was also honest enough to admit that ‘jerk’ was also right.
So it could be forgiven that he rolled his eyes at the indignant shouts coming from the people he’d been dumb enough to ally himself with after he came back from almost two years on the run after ULTRON.
(it wasn’t forgiven. But it could have been)
“Also for the record,” Happy interjected, startling the watching world, “we knew about James Barnes from the beginning. We knew he was the Winter Soldier. But the thing about HYDRA — and SHIELD, actually — is that they did possess a few shreds of cunning and subtlety. None of their file names had anything in common with the actual subject, which from a security point I admit is a good idea. So we just thought Rogers was on a Heroic Quest” (his contempt was so obvious, one could hear the capital letters) “to rescue his long-lost BFF, because heaven forbid he actually try to actively live in the current decade, much less build any kind of actual life outside of fighting and tearing shit up. But while he was hunting down a past that doesn’t actually exist, he was leaving Tony alone and not destroying anything. Of course, he was also stealing from Tony and SI, but we knew about it and have the receipts, and at the time we thought it was a fair trade in exchange for knowing where and what he and Romanova and some random guy he found on the street were doing.”
(that pointed jab made Wilson flinch and Barton scowl and Banner and Sharon Carter wrinkle their foreheads in confusion. Rogers and Romanova wore matching defiant glowers)
“So even though we did a thorough search for anything related to Tony or Howard, we missed a few things,” Ned said quietly, eyes full of guilt that he did know wasn’t his, but still felt because of how badly Tony had been hurt as a result of something he had no way of knowing.
Peter turned around and took his hand, squeezing it reassuringly but staying silent. He understood better than anyone, because he felt the same guilt, only his was compounded by what had happened at Leipzig.
When he turned back to the camera, his shoulder brushing a very quiet Tony’s, his face was hard and set.
“Like Pepper said, things were good for a few years. We cleaned up a lot of the streets, though we never actually met Tony in person. It was safer for all of us. And the way we had built our network meant that anything Tony did as Iron Man was completely separate from our work. I mean, people were suspicious, sure, because let’s be honest: who else in New York has the brains and the resources to pull off what we did? But there was zero overlap. Ned and I refused to let Tony take the fall for us and he did the same for us. Adrian Toomes learned that the hard way. And so did Wilson Fisk.”
Rather more laconically than should be allowed, Ned interjected, “The Scorpion, the Rhino, the Copperheads, the Black Diamondback, the Rattler Sisters, the Vipers, the Cottonmouth . . . you know, looking back, New York had a massive snake infestation. Fortunately, I hate snakes, so cleaning them out was therapeutic.”
Tony nodded in emphatic agreement, but Peter muttered, juuuuust loud enough for the speakers to pick up, “I hate black widows more.”
Nobody had a chance to reply to his bitter jab at a certain person when he huffed in remembered irritation and informed the population of New York state in particular and the eavesdroppers in general, “Adrian Toomes, the Vulture, threatened to kill my whole family because as Spiderman, though I first came across him as Nighthawk, I was trying to stop him from selling alien weaponry to anyone who had the money and aiming to cause massive civilian casualties and destruction. He’s a permanent resident of a maximum-security prison infirmary. Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk, abducted one of my classmates that I actually like for his three human trafficking rings — the ones he thought we didn’t know about — and the drug running ops, the gun running ops, and the would-be mafia gangs he was trying to establish. Thanks to Tony and Ned, he’s a lifetime member of another MaxSec prison. He just can’t talk to anyone ever again, because he doesn’t have a tongue. Or lips.”
“Or four fingers,” Ned chimed in, grinning, while Tony silently preened.
Peter was so cheerful as he shared those two particular Villain Ending stories that the truly vile people who were listening, those in prison and the ones still running around being vile and hurting people, flinched. And quite a few of them started rethinking their life choices because it was blatantly obvious that the Family wasn’t going to stop. Everyone would just know who was coming for them now.
Which, frankly, was a billion times more terrifying.
Unaware of the panic his words had just caused, Peter grew serious and, after a moment of clear consideration, told the world, “You know, in my early days as Spiderman, I made a very serious mistake while I was trying to stop the Vulture. I almost got a massive ferry full of people hurt or killed because I was new to actual ‘super-heroing’, as it were, and I overestimated myself. It took Iron Man to keep that situation from becoming a catastrophe. But the people who were here during that time remember that I openly and publicly apologized for my idiocy and I moved and cleaned up as much debris as I could — because I was the one who was responsible for a lot of it. I didn’t mean to do it, I mean, it—it wasn’t intentional, but it still happened because of my actions. But the fact that I stepped up on my own and took ownership of my mistakes is why Tony trusted me to help when those moron Rogues decided to destroy Europe in their tantrum. And that’s what Rogers and Romanova refuse to understand or accept: lack of deliberate intention doesn’t erase the results. Natasha Romanova didn’t intend to kill my aunt. But she did. And she never bothered to acknowledge it, much less apologize for her carelessness, because she didn’t mean to do it, so it doesn’t count.”
Happy growled at that, laying a protective hand on Peter’s shoulder, and got a grateful, if wan, smile, and Ned picked up the thought.
“What’s weird is that before the Accords, we still hadn’t had a single face-to-face contact, but we thought of each other as family. And yes, two teenagers successfully helped keep Tony Stark’s name and involvement a secret. But the cops were getting more aggressive in looking for us, because we were embarrassing the snot out of them. I mean, 911 calls plummeted after we got a rhythm established and a lot of the time, even when a cop showed up, the victims still came to us or asked for us. They were pissed off and actively trying to hunt us down and it was annoying. They didn’t have any chance of finding us, but we did have to divert a lot of attention to keep them from interfering. Because, see, they weren’t trying to assist or even take over and stop the crimes we were handling,” he explained, lips twisting in a disgusted sneer. “They just wanted to stop us. They had no interest in actually doing their jobs, but they were furious that we were making them look so bad.”
He paused again, swallowed hard, and leaned into Tony’s hug when a strong arm curled around his shoulders.
“But then I . . . got my powers,” he quietly stated. “And after the initial WTF panic, I realized it was perfect. The police here usually won’t listen to a teenager or take one seriously, see. I almost can’t even blame them for it, though at least investigating the information would be nice. But if I could earn the people’s trust and respect as a masked . . . well, hero . . . then I could see about maybe coaxing the NYPD to start reforming itself. If someone who was an established good guy instead of a faceless vigilante became the person that people called for help instead of them, maybe they’d shape up and start doing their jobs — including stopping their own corrupt people. And then I could start handing over the . . . I don’t want to say ‘common criminals’, but that’s really what most of them are.”
He sighed heavily and slumped in his seat, looking much older than seventeen, and raked a hand through his hair before straightening again and looking back at the camera.
“It turns out that I seriously overestimated the NYPD. I don’t know if corruption is just that deeply entrenched or because they can’t handle the fact that other people are better at their jobs in every aspect, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Most of the cops, at least in Queens, hate Spiderman just as much as they do the Nighthawks — that’s the name a bunch of people we rescued from a nasty drug and sex trafficking ring gave us and it’s awesome, so we kept it. But otherwise, it worked perfectly: Spiderman gave the citizens someone to trust in the daylight. And it’s . . . fun . . . helping people with their groceries and directions. Though, would it kill you guys in Queens to keep your cats inside?” he asked plaintively, huffing at the laughs he got from everyone who’d helped bandage him up after a Cat in Tree Encounter.
Which was all of them.
“But it’s nice, being Spiderman,” he almost murmured as the amusement died down. “It reminds me that not everyone is in danger — or a criminal.”
He paused again and sighed once more, not even looking up when Ned laid a hand on his shoulder and Pepper hugged him to her side. They all stayed quiet for several minutes, simply allowing Peter and their enthralled audience a chance to absorb all the information that had just been dropped in their laps, before Tony heaved his own sigh and started the next part of their story.
“I knew that Peter was Spiderman, naturally; I was the second person he told. But I was trying so hard to respect his and Ned’s privacy that I still didn’t look any deeper, which was . . . not really smart, though I stand by my reasons. And then the Accords finally came into play, officially. To this day,” he told the world at large, though the pointed barb was aimed at four specific people, “I can’t tell you why Wilson and Banner rejected them out of hand. I know Rogers’ motivation and Carter has a school-girl crush the size of the planet on him and Romanova thinks she’s better than every person ever born, but those two honestly surprised me. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have, but it’s amazing how often hope will beat out experience,” he said somewhat drolly, which earned tired nods of agreement from everyone in the room.
“Anyway, Rogers rejected the Accords without even finishing the summary, so naturally Wilson followed suit, because he apparently had surgery to remove his brain and use Captain America’s instead. It’s a shame he doesn’t have one. Romanova initially agreed, because she’s not completely stupid and after the utter clusterfuck that was Lagos, she knew people were mad — which none of us saw coming, because that base had been abandoned for more than a decade.”
He gave a sardonic snort at his own words before bitterly telling the terrorist war criminals formerly known as The Avengers, “Turns out HYDRA had figured Rogers out, too, and was feeding Romanova their own leads. And Rogers is so transparent that even Rumlow knew who he was looking for, so he threw Barnes in his face and used Rogers’ complete inability to function when Bucky Barnes is mentioned to detonate a bomb he’d actually had no intention of blowing at the time. And that was what nobody could get Rogers to understand: if he hadn’t stuck his nose and abnormally large and really ugly feet in it, nobody would have gotten hurt that day. A smart person would have tracked Rumlow out of town and then cornered him, when it was safe. Or safer. But nooooooo,” he jeered, eyes blazing with contempt. “Steve Rogers not destroy something when he has the chance? How would people know he was there to save them? After all, more people would have died if he hadn’t been there.”
Peter stopped his and Tony’s blood pressure from skyrocketing by the simple expedient of literally nudging his way up Tony’s side, under his arm, until he was tucked into his shoulder and as fully enveloped as it was possible to get while sitting in a chair. Nobody spoke for a while as they all watched Tony consciously bring his breathing back under control. Once that rage was safely banked, Rhodes cleared his throat.
“Even after ULTRON, none of us really understood that Rogers honestly thinks that he’s perfect and never makes mistakes, especially on missions. When presented with data that proves otherwise, he literally does not hear it. So his refusal to accept any blame or responsibility for Lagos wasn’t surprising in retrospect, though it was infuriating. And then, naturally, Wilson and Romanova followed suit because they both knew how bad things would get if they admitted they’d fucked up because they’re bootlicking sycophants but they do at least have the collective IQ of twelve. And of course, they couldn’t tell anyone the real reason they were there, since that would mean Tony would learn about Barnes.”
“Yeah,” Tony cut in, eyes flinty as he glared at his former teammates and parasites, ignoring the actual world in an impressive display of dominance. “And Rogers couldn’t have that. He killed several thousand people, directly or by proxy, just to keep me in the dark. And he doesn’t regret a single death. Not one. If he had the chance to go back, he would not change a single thing, because he honestly, truly, believes that he’s always right and infallible. So when he went stupid about the Accords, I wasn’t surprised. Annoyed, yeah, but not surprised. And then he had the audacity to accuse me of selling out and working with Thaddeus Ross, because he is so ignorant of our current political structure that he has no idea that Ross, while a traitor and, frankly, an asshole of epic proportions, was also the Secretary of State. I had to deal with him because the position was our liaison to the UN.”
He paused and scoffed bitterly. “Of course, Rogers doesn’t know what the UN is, either, so . . . yeah. And that ignorance is deliberate. He hates being in this century, which I can understand, but hating it doesn’t actually change the fact and refusing to adapt really doesn’t change anything. Other than making him useless, that is. But I digress. I was trying to keep him from ruining America’s reputation as a country and standing in the UN, on top of ours as the Avengers, so when he destroyed a good chunk of Bucharest, I sat down and cried for a few minutes, then started the process. I still thought he could be reasoned with if I made his actions legal and acceptable, see. So I managed to get him and Wilson a deal: sign the Accords and Bucharest would officially be considered an Avengers op, and Barnes would go straight to a doctor vetted and background checked by me.”
His lips twisted before he caustically finished with, “I still didn’t understand the depths of his obsession. He refuses to let Barnes out of his sight, literally, even now, and took my offer to get the man the mental help he so desperately needs as an attack on his ability to take care of his teddy bear. He refused because he’d feel inadequate that someone else was better able to look after Barnes. Well, and he was terrified that I’d find out the man assassinated my parents while he was brainwashed as the Winter Soldier. Because telling me in a calm environment with my friends to help absorb the impact was just too risky, you understand. Much better to keep me in the dark so he could use my money and resources to look for him. And his excuse, if you can believe it, is that if he’d told me at any point in the two years he knew the truth, I’d instantly find Barnes and kill him. Because obviously, I can’t understand circumstances, you know? And I wasn’t a weapons developer for more than twenty years, so clearly I can’t recognize a gun when I see one. But, see, people see their own thoughts and motivations in others, and since that’s what Rogers would have done in my place, naturally I would, too. So he lied to me, stole from me, and accused me of keeping secrets from him while never even hinting at what he knew . . . but I’m the bad guy.”
He paused, gave the camera a hateful glower aimed at one specific person — no prizes for guessing who — and jeered, “Captain America, people. The Man With a Plan.”
“We didn’t know that at the time, though,” Rhodes cut in, giving Tony a look of sorrowful remorse that was soothed with a gentle shoulder bump. “So instead of letting Tony just blast him in the face with a repulsor and call it solved, I convinced him to get other enhanced who supported the Accords — which, for the record, is the vast majority of them. Even Magneto sees the appeal and he’s an avowed anarchist — and try bringing them together instead of divide and conquer. Seeing Barton at Leipzig was surprising, since he’d retired more than a year ago, never mind Sharon Carter and Scott Lang, but still: we were there to bring them in peacefully. Let the record show — which we have, by the way — that not once did Rogers try to tell us about the group of other Winter Soldiers apart than a single vague mention. He was too busy making sure we understood that Teddy Bear Barnes was innocent of the bombing — you know, the one we had video evidence that he set? But of course, that was wrong and the corrupt governments who wanted to use the Accords to make the Avengers their personal attack dogs were just hunting down an innocent man. Yes, he said every one of those at least once,” Rhodes confirmed to his appalled audience, his own face dark with remembered anger.
“He refused to even let Tony finish asking, accused him of tearing the team apart because he had the audacity to sign an international document supported by more than half of the planet’s countries. So Tony sicced Spiderman on him. I didn’t know yet that Baby Nighthawk — hush, it’s your name — was also this new guy in Queens, but I trust Tony. The problem is that we didn’t understand just how far Rogers was prepared to go to protect Barnes. I still can’t believe he managed to duck that missile after he dropped that bridge on Spiderman — without knowing a single thing about him or his abilities. Then Lang decided to fuck with my suit and Rogers and Barnes managed to steal our jet while Tony was getting Peter out from under that damned bridge and I used Wilson as a piggyback because Lang shorted out my stabilizers and nearly knocked me out of the sky at 1000 feet. Vision whammied him while I took Wilson out and Romanova and T’Challa punched each other out, and we hauled them back to Berlin.”
“For the outrage I can hear,” Tony said quietly, but with pure titanium alloy threading each word, “I knew Peter’s abilities and character and, frankly, thought he deserved a chance to help take down the man who was directly responsible for the circumstances of his uncle’s murder because he’s a selfish, blind asshole who doesn’t care. I honestly didn’t expect it to devolve in a full-on brawl, though I really should have, and Peter was actually about to throw that bridge back at Rogers when he saw me shoot a missile and politely waited his turn.”
He gave his son a fond look and got a feral smile in response before they both turned to the screen.
This time, it was Peter. And his family would not have looked prouder if everyone’s grandmother had been standing there clasping their hands and taking a formal picture for The Family Album.
“Once he got a location from Wilson, along with a load of BS that I hope he chokes on, I demanded to go with him and since I’m stronger than Rogers and have better reflexes when I’m prepared, and Uncle Rhodey was going, he agreed. So the three of us headed to Siberia, which is not at all an ideal vacation spot. Switzerland is a much better place to ski. But we tracked them into this ugly bunker that couldn’t be more cliché if it tried and Rogers blustered and postured some more at us, while making sure he served as a human shield for his precious Bucky,” Peter sneered as he clenched his fists at the memory.
“Then the man who started it all laid out his plan. And do you know the most interesting part of the whole fucking thing? The bulk of it relied on Steve Rogers being a jerk. He knew that Rogers hadn’t told Dad about his parents just from observing the team for a few months and it isn’t like the prick’s obsession with his teddy bear is a secret, so from those two facts, he was able to design the most convoluted plan I’ve ever heard in my life and I’ve taken down crooked politicians.”
A multi-faceted hum of agreement answered that last statement and Peter gave a fleeting grin before he tucked himself even firmly against Tony and tilted his head up so he could meet his dad’s gaze.
“Steve Rogers is a morally bankrupt asshole,” he baldly stated. “But Zemo isn’t any better. He knew that the Starks were assassinated and by who, and he didn’t tell Dad either. He was so desperate to get revenge on Rogers for his destruction of Sokovia that he didn’t care about anyone else. He was so stupid, because if he’d told Dad when he found out, we would’ve gladly helped him get his revenge on Rogers. It was justified and we hate him, too. But instead, he had to play his games and make this big dramatic reveal. Which is really fucking annoying, by the way. Do you have any idea how much more you’d get done if you cut the high school drama out of the equation?”
A sharp headshake answered his own rhetorical question and another smile came to his lips. This one was cold, satisfied, and so full of malice that even Wilson Fisk and his ilk flinched.
“So Rogers and Barnes and Dad and Uncle Rhodey and I all got to watch this really, really clear video of Barnes murdering my grandparents. Once he realized what we were seeing, Uncle Rhodey got in front of Dad, but we couldn’t mute the sound, while I blew the chance to web that . . . that . . . Rogers . . . up because I was in too much shock. And the worst part? The entire time, Rogers refused to look at Dad. But he made damn good and sure to keep himself in front of Barnes. He never even flinched when my grandmother died. And then Dad . . . he wanted so badly to believe that as much as we hate Rogers for his complete disregard of life and his total self-absorption . . . he just . . . God, he really thought — he hoped — that this was news to him, too. That some sliver of who Captain America is supposed to be was in there.”
He stopped again and took several deep breaths. Quite a few of the watchers were afraid he was about to start breathing fire. The rest of them were throwing up, because JARVIS had shown them Rogers’ face and reaction to his second viewing of the murder of a man he claimed was a good friend and his wife.
Then Pepper did exhale a burst of flames and that diverted everyone’s attention for a few minutes. Tony finally had to kiss her into submission, which wasn’t nearly as effective as it should have been, since a different kind of fire ignited, but they eventually got the furious woman calm enough for Rhodes to finish describing the odious betrayal of everything human, compassionate, and just plain decent.
“It wasn’t,” he said coldly, brown eyes icing over and creating a terrifying contrast to the embers of flame still licking lazily at Pepper’s hair and, by proximity, his own shirt. “Because the second Tony managed to look at Rogers, he started spouting off about how it wasn’t Barnes’ fault, it was HYDRA. Tony isn’t a genius for nothing, you know, so it took him four seconds to understand and he asked Rogers, straight up, ‘Did you know?’. And do you know what he said?” Rhodes spat viciously, glaring through the camera and coming within millimeters of burning a hole in the empty cavity that should have contained Steve Rogers’ heart. “That sorry son of a bitch looked Tony dead in the eye and said, ‘I didn’t know it was him.’ With a perfectly straight face. I couldn’t kill him because I was too busy choking on that bullshit and, frankly, that was Tony’s right, not mine. But Peter was holding his arm, so horrified he couldn’t even talk. And Tony?”
The world’s heart had just broken for Tony Stark, because even the dumbest person knew that none of this family had any reason to lie. They’d just admitted to being the most ruthless, efficient vigilante group in the state and maybe the country, so there was no reason at all to lie about this.
Also, JARVIS had showed them that exchange, too.
But hearing James Rhodes’ voice break and seeing his face crumple with raw grief reached another level and made this truth even more real . . . and unfathomably more devastating.
“Tony just stared at him for a second and called him on it. Asked him again if he’d known. And that fucker still thought about lying again — TO TONY’S FACE. But for a reason I honestly can’t figure out even now, he found half a shred of human decency and said ‘yes’, he’d known that Howard and Maria were assassinated by his best friend.”
He stopped again, eyes glazed with shared grief and raw, unadulterated rage, which his voice echoed as he finished the tale of Steve Rogers’ downfall and disgrace.
“Tony decked him so hard it knocked him back about thirty feet. It was beautiful. Then he started to go for Barnes but somehow managed to stop himself and let Pete hug him while I punched Rogers in the face again and cuffed him and then got him to web that asshole’s mouth shut because he was whining about how ‘Bucky was innocent’ and ‘it wasn’t him, it was HYDRA’ and ‘this doesn’t change what happened’. Quite frankly, I would have let Tony execute him there and been perfectly justified and within our rights, but Pete stopped him. Said the world needed to hear the truth about their ‘golden hero’. Plus, there are much more satisfying ways to destroy someone than just killing them.”
(Rogers didn’t flinch.
He didn’t)
“Absolutely,” Tony answered Rhodes, his unblinking gaze not moving from the camera. “And the amount of satisfaction Steve Rogers owes me goes back decades. Barnes at least had the decency to surrender himself and he actually apologized later — which Rogers still hasn't done, by the way. We hauled them to prison with the other morons and left ‘em there to marinate while the UN argued about what to do with them. Barnes was eventually sent to a group — gaggle? — whatever a bunch of doctors is called and they got HYDRA cleared out of his head and him in therapy that worked. He's a productive member of society now."
A feral smile split his lips for just a second at that, though few people registered it before it disappeared in the wake of his next words.
"Then Thor showed up, yowling about the exact same threat I’ve been warning people about since 2012 — you know the one, Steve? The one you kept telling me was my ego needing more attention because I ‘saved the day’ that first time, so naturally I wanted to do it again? Because I don’t get attention any other way, so I have to manufacture a coming crisis. Or, like you told me with a perfectly straight face and so much sincerity I actually got sick, ‘every time someone tries to end a war before it starts, people die’, so obviously planning for and trying to prevent another alien invasion was a complete waste of time and wh—excuse me, if it came, well, we’d beat it together. Those were his exact words, people," he jeered.
"And after I recovered the ability to talk, I inquired as to his plan for when we lost. Do you know what he said? Captain America, the man who got famous by fake punching fake Hitler in the face after lying on multiple enlistment forms to join the Army as a soldier and eagerly agreed to an experimental drug that would make him big and strong and the perfect soldier so he could ‘fight bullies’, informed me that if we lost the invasion we shouldn’t plan for and try to prevent because people would die, we would lose together.”
He paused for twenty-two heartbeats to allow the world to assimilate that and then smirked.
“And then, of course, there’s the not-lovely Natasha. The one who also knew about Barnes and my parents and kept her forked tongue behind her teeth while lying to me, stealing from me, and trying desperately to gaslight me and manipulate me to control me because she’s so repulsive that she couldn’t seduce me while I was dying of heavy metal poisoning. I couldn’t think straight for anything on this earth, literally, but I still managed to invent and successfully create a new element . . . but you, the great Black Widow, couldn’t get yourself in my bed.” A beat. “Which, really, says everything about you, doesn’t it?”
Another beat.
“Anyway, imagine my complete lack of surprise when Thor landed about a month after we finally got you assholes locked up and started screaming about this mad titan coming to Earth to pick up his wayward Trinkets of Unimaginable Power. Being me, I naturally told — okay, screamed — at him ‘I told you so!’ and started calling my people, because nobody with three working braincells is dumb enough to think I gave up just because Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Braindead tried to gaslight me into letting them be the real heroes of the story. We worked quietly, in the background, and did as much as we could, which was a lot, activated our defense system, got everything that we’d prepared and planned for ready, and . . . well, you guys saw. Giant purple raisin came down blathering about how great he was and how he knew better than everyone in the entire universe how to do things. Since I’d already had more than enough of human Steve Rogers, I synced up with Peter and Loki and the lovely, fierce, deadly Nebula, and we took the bastard’s head off while he was monologuing about ‘making great choices and hard sacrifices’ or something like that. And my awesome Platypus and my amazing fiancée and our favorite Forehead of Security made sure that that the pricks who would have handed us over to the purple raisin without so much as a whimper were there to see me win, because the Earth and the universe deserve protectors and defenders, not a bunch of braindead, over-indulged toddlers.”
“Hell to the yes!” Rhodes snapped, eyes feral. “Those fuckers needed to finally understand who they had made their enemy and how stupid they really are. I mean, that lesson is wasted on Rogers and Romanova, but they will both drop dead if they ever admit they were wrong about something, so we weren’t expecting anything there. But the rest of you dipshits finally know that you are going to die in prison when you didn’t have to because all of you were too lazy, stupid, and cowardly to think for your yourselves.”
“Most of them,” Pepper interjected, just as feral as Rhodes and more protective than Peter. “Russia immediately agreed to let us kill their wayward, albeit useless, Red Room spy as long as an approved representative is there to observe. They didn’t even try to negotiate. Speaking of which . . . FRIDAY, has she arrived yet?”
“About forty minutes ago, Mrs. Boss,” Pepper’s personal AI replied. “If you’re ready—” Pepper nodded — “I just gave her access to the cell block and the burned SHIELD agent who won the final toss is waiting for your word.”
A single nod was all JARIVS needed and the camera suddenly went split-screen, and the entire world found itself watching with various emotions and levels of disbelief as a man, lean and someone who would never be noticed in a crowd, grinned like someone who’d been betrayed for nothing but hubris and arrogance by someone he’d trusted, raised his gun, and got vengeance and justice for every person that Natasha Romanova had betrayed with three shots: two to the heart and one in the forehead to make sure that she didn’t tell death she was too important to kill and find some way to crawl off.
Rogers’ scream of furious denial was very gratifying to hear, as was Barton’s, for most of the world, while the Iron Fam just . . . smiled . . . and visibly relaxed at knowing one of their personal betrayers and tormenters was finally dead.
The split screen ended and their still-enthralled audience found itself holding its collective breath and they weren’t disappointed. Tony Stark sniffed once and flicked a gesture at the camera. The screen split again, this time to Steve Rogers, and the world watched with breathless anticipation as his jaw dropped when a phalanx of guards armed to the actual teeth (they were wearing protective mouthpieces) escorted to his cell door a man who looked so much like the late Abraham Erskine that WWII history buffs the world over did a near-unison double take.
“Doctor Erskine?” Rogers whispered in disbelief, only to reel back in unfeigned, genuine hurt when the man barked out a caustic laugh.
“No, you moronic twit!” he snapped with a pronounced English accent. “I’m his great-grandson, Joseph. My grandfather survived and managed to escape to England. And you, you are an utter disgrace to Zayde leben’s memory. My father, young Master Parker-Stark, and I spent the last two years recreating his research for the sole purpose of neutralizing you. Doctor Stark offered to just kill you, you know, but Abraham deserves more than that. He championed you, trusted you, believed in you, and you have shat on every single one of his hopes, dreams, and sacrifices.”
Fortunately for everyone, Rogers was taken so aback by the verbal assault that he couldn't talk, because the young man was almost panting from depths of his emotions and the look on his face should have incinerated the entire cellblock to a single layer of ash. He quickly brought himself under control and gave the Great Betrayer a hateful smirk that made the man take an actual step back before he squared his shoulders and set his jaw, defiant even now, in the face of all of his crimes and the living embodiment of what could be called his worst betrayal.
Joseph Erskine didn’t say another word, nor did he allow Rogers the chance. He simply made a sharp, angry gesture and one of his guards opened the cell door and restrained the blond behemoth effortlessly. The horror on Rogers’ face when he realized the man was James Barnes was so far beyond priceless, there isn’t actually a word. That look became a cult favorite, then an international meme, then a vine, and finally a t-shirt that was so popular, the money from the sales was enough to rebuild Bucharest without any outside help.
Once Rogers couldn’t move or talk and was staring longingly, almost desperately, at Barnes, who ignored him completely and in the process, managed to succeed where everything and everyone else had failed by making Steve Rogers think twice about one of his choices, Erskine stepped up to him, jabbed a wickedly long syringe into his neck, and spit in his face before pivoting on his heel and stalking down the hall. In the only show of emotion since Rogers had recognized him, Barnes punched the brat hard in the throat and walked away without a second of hesitation or a backwards glance.
Then the entire world watched Steve Rogers gasp for air he couldn’t get and choke on the knowledge that the man he’d destroyed his world for had just willingly ensured his downfall. His pride and joy, the serum that made him believe he was a man and an important one at that, dissolved in his blood in less than ten minutes, and Captain America disintegrated with it. Seeing him crumple and be unmade back into a weak, scrawny, somewhat disproportional body was . . . grotesque. Frightening. Humbling.
And very effective.
His screams, muffled as they were behind his gag, were so satisfying that Peter actually started crying and Ned was right there with him. The two people who had destroyed Peter’s life and betrayed Tony so many times and hurt Ned so badly and fucked the world over just because they could . . . they were finally GONE. It wouldn’t change the past, wouldn’t bring anyone back or undo the damage and the wounds, but they were finally powerless to hurt anyone else.
They could never walk away again.
The rest of the populace was either terrified or calculating.
A few truly enterprising souls were both.
And with their story told, Tony gathered his sons into his side and his fiancée and their chosen family stood strong and proud and protective at their backs.
The world trembled.
“Well,” Tony drawled after three minutes of ‘I’m a drama queen and love it’ silence. “That’s all, folks.”
~~~
fin