Fun-vee
The screen cut to Tony standing at ease in the desert, a mountain behind him.
“Is it better to be feared or respected?” Tony asked rhetorically. “I say, is it too much to ask for both? With that in mind, I humbly present the crown jewel of Stark Industries’ Freedom Line.”
“You have never done anything humbly in your life,” Rhodey commented, to which Tony looked affronted.
“I’ll have you know I voluntarily flew a nuke into space,” Tony scoffed.
“Fine,” Rhodey conceded. “ At that point, you had never done anything humbly in your life.” His smirk practically begged Tony to argue, his mouth opening and closing but unable to contradict him.
Soldiers watched as Tony continued. “It’s the first missile system to incorporate our proprietary repulsor technology. They say the best weapon is one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree,” he said, placing more weight on his words as he spoke. “I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once.”
Wanda frowned. She’d done a lot of hard thinking since the battle of Sokovia and she knew now that Tony was not fully to blame for her tragic past, but it was easier to come to that conclusion when Tony was a superhero trying to save people. This Tony, the one that did whatever he wanted and saw war as a game to profit from was much harder to absolve from blame.
“That’s how dad did it, that’s how America does it, and it’s worked out pretty well so far.”
“Was that really Howard’s motto?” Steve turned to Tony, skeptical.
“Well…” Tony replied sheepishly. “Yeah, kind of.” Seeing Steve’s sadness, he added, “I think he got worse as he got older. Cared less, quicker to anger. He wasn’t always so… cold.” Steve considered this, wondering if his old teammate was lying to spare his feelings. Eventually, he nodded, choosing to believe regardless of the truth..
“Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee you the bad guys won’t even want to come out of their caves.”
“‘Bad guys’,” Clint scoffed.
“It’s not that simple, Tony,” Nat added.
Tony sighed. “I know.”
At this he motioned for the missile to launch, but Tony barely spared a single look.
“For your consideration, the Jericho,” he finished, raising his arms to the side. Perfectly timed, the mountain behind him was hit with the pieces of the Jericho, causing a resounding boom, multiple explosions, and a wave of dust and debris that overwhelmed the man and the soldiers watching the presentation.
The group was stunned to silence for a second time.
“Quite the demonstration,” Bruce said carefully.
Tony shrugged. “I had a flair for the dramatics.”
“Still, that weapon is incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands.”
“I never actually sold one,” Tony admitted, followed by a collective sigh of relief.
After the demonstration, Tony opened a cooler filled with alcohol.
“I’ll be throwing one of these in with every purchase of 500 million or more,” he said, motioning to the cooler with a scotch in his hand. “To peace!” He toasted, taking a sip.
“Yeah, that’s why they’d buy it,” Pepper muttered.
Pulling out his flip phone, Obediah appeared on his screen.
“Tony,” the man said.
“Obie, what are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep until I found out how it went,” he answered. “How’d it go?”
“It went great. Looks like it’s gonna be an early Christmas.”
“I’m sure it would’ve been a bleak Christmas otherwise,” Peter snorted.
“Hey! Way to go, my boy! I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Why aren’t you wearing those pajamas I got you?”
“Good night, Tony,” Stane replied, rolling his eyes as Tony hung up and got into one of the military vehicles.
The interaction left a sour taste in Tony’s mouth. He’d been so desperate for a father figure after his own dad failed that he allowed Stane to manipulate him for years. It was one of his greatest regrets in life, and for Tony Stark that said a lot.
“Hey, Tony,” Rhodey said, going up to Tony’s window.
“I’m sorry,” Tony interrupted, “this is the ‘fun-vee’. The ‘hum-drum-vee’ is back there.”
“Really?” Nat was unimpressed.
“I stand by it,” Tony shrugged.
“You shouldn’t,” Rhodey sighed.
“Nice job.”
“See you back at base.”
“I hope so,” Peter said softly, the worry for his mentor taking over.
Once again, Back in Black began to play as one of the vehicles exploded.
Peter grimaced, trying to force the image out of his mind. It was easy to pretend in this theater that nothing had changed. In here, Tony was alive. Happy remembered him. It made it easy to slip back into the happy, bubbly kid he’d been when he’d first met Tony Stark. He could almost forget the shitshow his life had turned into since he returned from the blip.
Almost.
The scenes blended together, showing Tony in the middle of surgery, screaming as he watched the men pulling things from his chest and putting in a mess of metal and wires. Eventually they placed a rag with chloroform over his mouth and nose, allowing him to finally pass out.
Jaws dropped around the room. Though still awful to watch, they’d seen the first clip already, been prepared for it even, but what followed was gruesome and terrible. Even those who’d been close to Tony at the time of his rescue never allowed themselves to imagine something so horrific.
The man in question simply locked his eyes on the screen, pointedly ignoring the pitying glances from those around him. Instead, his focus was fully on maintaining even breaths, counting, and taking in his surroundings as he’d become accustomed to. His techniques kept the worst of it at bay but his covert panic attack did not escape the notice of his friends. Simultaneously, Pepper and Peter took a hand on either side and squeezed. Rhodey made a point of breathing slowly and loudly for Tony to follow, and the others kept quiet, allowing the man the space to ground himself.
Eventually, he squeezed both hands and met the stares of the group, but he offered no answers to what they’d seen.
The therapist in Sam knew Tony needed to talk about it, but he worried about pushing him too far.
“Tony,” he finally began, his tone soft and gentle as though he was speaking to a skittish animal, “you wanna talk about it?”
Recognizing the open endedness of the question, Tony just gave a slight shake of his head.
“I think you can guess what that was,” he replied shakily. “It’ll probably explain it soon anyway.”
Accepting his reluctance, they turned to watch.
Tony’s eyes snapped open, laying on a cot in a cave with a tube coming from his nose. Panicking, he pulled the tube from his nose and tried to grab a metal cup from beside his bed but accidentally pushed it off the side table next to his cot.
While he continued to struggle breathing, Tony finally noticed a man shaving, using a dirty piece of glass stuck to a wooden pillar. Tony’s movement caused noise, catching the man’s attention.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man said calmly, ignoring Tony’s panic.
The stranger’s calmness to Tony’s panic was such a stark contrast, leaving the viewers unsure how to feel about the man, but Tony’s sad expression pushed them towards trusting him, despite the fact that screen-Tony clearly didn’t.
“Who is that Tony?” Bruce asked.
“Yinsen.” Tony smiled slightly at the name, not having spoken it aloud in years. He didn’t bother explaining any more, near certain the Voice would silence him if he tried.
Turning back, Tony noticed the battery next to his cot with wires that connected to under the bandages covering his chest. He groaned, feeling a solid object under the bandages, and ripped them away revealing a magnet sitting partly inside his chest. Tony stared at the ceiling of the cave, breathing heavily with panic and shock filling his wide eyes with tears.
“Brutal,” Clint murmured, earning an elbow to the rib from Nat.
Peter’s hand, having never left his mentor’s grip, squeezed again. His face had gone white, eyes wide with concern. Despite the horrible experiences he was being forced to relive, Peter’s compassion brought a smile to Tony’s face.
The view changed to Tony sitting with Yinsen while he stirred a pot of food over a small fire. Tony used the small piece of glass to inspect his chest and watched Yinsen with distrust.
“What the hell did you do to me?” Tony accused.
“What I did?” Yinsen smiled slightly. “What I did is to save your life. I removed all the shrapnel I could, but there’s a lot left, and it’s headed into your atrial septum.”
“Oh god,” Bruce gulped.
“Is that dangerous?” Thor questioned, his knowledge of human biology slightly lacking.
“Very,” Bruce explained. “If it reaches the atrial septum he could bleed internally, and then…”
Thor grimaced. “I see.”
“Here, want to see?” He pulled out a small glass bottle, shaking it so that the pieces of shrapnel hit the walls. “I have a souvenir. Take a look,” he said, tossing the bottle to Tony.
“How is he so nonchalant,” Bucky growled under his breath. His experiences with doctors who operated on an unwilling subject were never good.
“It’s a coping strategy,” Tony explained, not looking at the man. Bucky was surprised to receive an answer and even more surprised who it came from, but he had no desire to push his luck and squander whatever kindness Stark was willing to extend his way.
As Yinsen continued, Tony inspected the metal. “I’ve seen many wounds like that in my village. We call them the walking dead because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs.”
“What is this?” Tony asked.
“That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery, and it’s keeping the shrapnel from entering your heart,” he finished, nodding.
“It’s a clever strategy given the situation, but did he really have to put it in a hole in your chest,” Peter accused.
“He saved my life Pete. I’m not too worried about how he did it.”
Tony hid the magnet under his jacket and noticed the active camera on the wall.
“That’s right. Smile,” Yinsen said sarcastically. “We met once, you know, at a technical conference in Bern.”
“I don’t remember,” Tony responded, distracted.
“No, you wouldn’t,” Yinsen conceded. “If I had been that drunk, I wouldn’t have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits.”
Light chuckles made their way around the room.
“You always were a great public speaker, even when you couldn’t remember it the next morning,” Happy laughed.
“To be fair, I never remembered those speeches, alcohol or not.” Tony’s attempt to defend himself backfired as he received countless eye rolls.
“Where are we?”
Before Yinsen could answer, loud voices were heard from the other side of the metal door. As it opened, Yinsen turned serious.
“Come on, stand up. Stand up!” His tone was urgent, as he gestured for Tony to stand. “Just do as I do. Come on, put your hands up.”
The tension in the room was palpable, as though all the air had been sucked out. They waited with bated breaths for something to happen, hoping that Tony wouldn’t somehow end up in worse condition.
The men entered, each of them carrying weapons.
“Those are my guns,” Tony realized. “How did they get my guns?”
Though she already knew Stark hadn’t been the one to sell the weapons that terrorized her home, this scene confirmed to Wanda that the man was blameless. His shock and immediate anger at seeing his weapons in the wrong hands showed how truly ignorant he was back then, and she found it impossible to keep from comparing him to herself when she volunteered for Strucker’s experiments and helped Ultron.
“Do you understand me?” Yinsen hissed. “Do as I do.”
The man in charge began to speak in Arabic, nodding to Yinsen when he finished.
“He says, ‘Welcome, Tony Stark, the most famous mass murderer in the history of America,’” he translated.
Tony flinched but made no move to argue with the claim.
The man continued to speak, letting Yinsen translate after each remark. “He is honoured. He wants you to build the missile.”
He handed Yinsen a photo, which he accepted, showing Tony.
“The Jericho missile that you demonstrated.”
Tony glared at the man with steely determination.
“He’s about to do something reckless, isn’t he?” Steve asked. No one answered.
“I refuse.”
Immediately the scene switched to showing Tony with his head in a large tub of water, struggling as the men held his head under the surface. They pulled him out for a moment while he gasped for air before forcing him back under.
While the scene played every one of them gasped or covered their mouths, some of them blinking away tears at the torture their friend had endured. Pepper and Peter resumed the positions of holding Tony’s hands, though it was hard to tell which of them benefitted the most from the comforting touch.
Though he’d been preparing himself, seeing this moment again sucked all the air from Tony’s lungs, his mind struggling to maintain control. The torture he’d experienced had scarred him for years. He’d avoided water like the plague for ages, never quite able to shake the feeling of drowning, searching for air when there was none to be found. He barely managed to keep from having a full shutdown, praying that the image would pass soon.
The men dragged him through the caves with a brown sack over his head, allowing him the slightest view of his surroundings. Once outside, Tony squinted against the sunlight, holding the battery connected to his chest. Eventually his eyes adjusted, revealing a canyon filled with weapons, all carrying the Stark Industries logo.
“That’s a lot of firepower,” Clint commented absentmindedly, still trying to wrap his head around the torture they’d just witnessed.
The man in charge began speaking again, making Yinsen translate.
“He wants to know what you think.”
“I think you got a lot of my weapons,” Tony replied angrily.
“How did they get so many weapons without you knowing?” Thor asked.
Tony just shook his head, not wanting to be silenced by the Voice. He was sure Obediah’s betrayal was meant to be a surprise, so he left the god wondering.
Yinsen translated for the man, who once again responded in Arabic.
“He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile,” Yinsen explained. “He wants you to make the list of materials. He says for you to start working immediately, and when you’re done, he will set you free.”
“Bullshit,” Clint growled.
The man held his hand out. Tony smiled, shaking his hand.
“No he won’t,” Tony said, still smiling.
“No, he won’t,” Yinsen responded, smiling along.
The men fake smiling on the screen were watched by superheroes who’d seen plenty of terrible things in their line of work, but who had never let themselves think about it happening to one of their own.