Chapter 7
Cold and Fear.
That’s what Tony feels right now as Steve is standing above him with raised shield.
As he slams the shield into Tony’s chest, Tony wakes up, breathing heavily and covered in sweat.
Nightmares aren’t a new thing in Tony’s life. Sometimes he dreams about Stane tearing the Arc Reactor out of his chest.
Sometimes about New York and Aliens.
And now, he dreams about Captain America killing him.
Its still early in the morning so both Friday and Vision are asleep. Tony is glad for that.
Both of them are aware that Tony has nightmares almost every night since 2012.
Friday and Jarvis before her tried their best to comfort him about them, but Tony doesn’t really like talking about it.
He signs and rubs his eyes. He knows that he isn’t going to sleep anymore so he stands up and goes downstair to get a coffee.
Downstairs Tony prepared his Coffee and just as he takes a sip, enjoying it’s taste…
“So this is where you went”
Tony spits the coffee out of his mouth and sharply turns, his eyes glowing in process.
“Nick.” Tony greeds and Fury stands up from the couch he was sitting on.
Tony starts thinking about how Fury even got inside, but then he realizes that with Friday’s evolution, they don’t actually have a defense system.
Heck… he should have finished working on Jocasta already.
“So, where were you when Rogers decided that he knows better then 117 countries?” Tony asks with hint of bitterness.
Fury doesn’t even blink “Classified”
Tony roles his eyes and mutters “Thought so”
“Who is the girl?” Fury asks mentioning his finger upstairs
Tony dangerously narrows his eyes at Fury who doesn’t even flinch
“Classified”
“Fair enough” Fury says breaking the eye contact.
“I need your help with…” Fury starts but Tony immediately cuts him off with raised finger
“I’m not helping you bring them back.” Tony says while walking away from Fury
“I’m not here because of The Avengers” Fury says little louder and Tony stops. Intrigued and waits for Fury to continue.
Fury signs “I need your help with a friend”
“You have friends?” Tony asks faking a surprised look. Fury ignores his comment, and hands him a file.
Inside is picture of flying, glowing woman in Red, Blue and Gold suit and funny helmet with…mohawk?
“Her name is Captain Carol Danvers, former Airforce. She was abducted by Aliens in 1999 and brainwashed.”
Great… another brainwashed Solider…
“The Aliens that kidnapped her are called Kree. She was with them for 2 years, thinking she was one of them. She thought that they were the good guys that protected Galaxy from Skrulls.”
Tony wants to ask what the hell are Skrulls but waits for Fury to finish.
“It turned out that The Kree were the ones that were slaughtering the Skurlls. Carol remembered some parts of her old life and switch sides, that’s when I met her. She saved The Skrulls refugees and made sure that Kree wouldn’t bother them or us again.
“Nice story Nick, but why would… The Kree? Kidnap her?”
“The Kree came for The Tesseract, but a Rogue Kree Scientist didn’t want to fight anymore, so she helped us with it and Danvers was the Pilot that was transporting it to safer location.” Fury signs and sits down
“That didn’t work out. Wendy died and Carol was exposed to Tesseracts Energy.”
“Giving her powers…” Tony mutters in realization.
Fury nods “She was in Space for a while and returned only recently. She worked with me on some things, but her powers were growing… weaker. She was on mission in New Orleans and didn’t report anything back. That was 6 days ago. We believe she was captured”
“And you want me to find her…”
Fury nods and Tony signs in frustration and leans his hands on the table.
“Did you know?” He whispers just loud enough for Fury to hear.
Fury knowing what Tony is asking about signs “We didn’t want to put pressure on Rogers. We thought he would tell you.”
Tony scoffs and narrows his eyes “Who else knew?”
Fury looks him directly into eyes before he answers “Rogers, Romanoff, Me and Carter”
“Sharon?” Tony asks quietly
Fury shakes his head “Peggy Carter”
That one hurt. Tony admired Peggy Carter since he was a kid.
She was there for him when his parents “died” and she hid the truth from him. He will never think about her in the same way as before… she lost his respect.
And to think that he was feeling guilty about not going to her funeral… Hah
He is at least glad that Sharon didn’t know, but on the other hand… he is disappointed in her.
He is aware that she returned the gear to “The Rogues” and when things went to hell, she like the rest of them became wanted fugitive and ran.
What disgusted him even more, is that there was camera footage of her and Rogers kissing.
The Hell… that’s just messed up. Rogers and Peggy were a thing in 40s! Ughhh Sharon always had terrible taste in men.
Tony was already suspecting that Romanoff knew. Rogers had to find out during “Project Insight” and Romanoff was with him the whole time…
It stings. He and Natasha were close, Tony even considered her like little sister sometimes…
Tony signs and turns to Fury with angry look “I will help you find your Space Lady but after that… You will get the hell away from my house and never return. Understood?”
Fury doesn’t look pleased about it but nods.
“Good. What was her mission in New Orleans?”
“We were hunting down the remaining Hydra operatives, According to our sources, they joined forces with one of your enemies and created something new…”
“My enemies”
“A.I.M”
That’s… that’s a surprise to Tony. He thought that A.I.M was fully disbanded and every of Killian’s henchmen was arrested.
But he is also aware that there was something else… going on. For example, Trevor Slattery went missing only 24 hours after he was imprisoned.
It was really strange… considering the rumors, that Killian was just another imposter that picked up the name “Mandarin” ,and that somewhere out there is still The Real Mandarin.
“What did they create?”
“Did you ever hear about Dr. George Tarleton?” Fury asks
“He was a scientist that worked with… Maya Hensen on Extremis under Killian” Tony says while closing his eyes.
Maya wasn’t a bad person, she didn’t deserve to die like that.
“He went and joined Hydra, blamed you for destroying “HIS” company”
“It was Killian’s company, and I didn’t destroy it but continue..” Tony says, rolling his eyes
Fury hands him another file and Tony’s eyes widen in disgust
“What the hell is that?”
Inside is photo of a man with giant head and floating chair
“That is Dr.Tarleton, he used his own bastardized version of Extremis and turned himself into Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing or simply, MODOK”