Broodmare

(HELLA EDITED AS OF 5-14-17) 

(HELLA EDITED AS OF 5-14-17)

Before they left Bucky gave them explicit orders. “Do not restrain him. He’ll panic. Do not lay him down flat. It’s traumatic. He’ll panic. If he starts showing signs that he’s waking up call for me and get the hell out of the room. No amount of soothing talk will calm him down.”

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Currently, T'Challa felt as though there was not enough liquor in all of Wakanda to make him forget the things he was hearing. Shuri was on the fainting couch, clutching the metal arm that Winter had insisted on surrendering, downing her fourth scotch.

Because the Ten Rings realized too late that they couldn't use Stark for ransom when Stane didn't want him in the first place they had decided to have him make weapons for them… but when they realized he was a fertile Omega a short time later they made other plans.”

“Broodmare.” T'Challa could barely say the word without gagging.

“Yessir. They already had in their possession one Ho Yensen; who helped keep him from dying in the first place by creating the arc reactor. Yensen was a genius. And they thought, two geniuses would obviously make a prodigy. They had already acquired me for whatever assassinations they would need, but put me on guard duty. I was there to make sure that they didn't escape, and that none of his men took advantage of the Omega when not given permission.”

Shuri stood up abruptly and shoved the metal arm in T'Challa’s lap. “Hold my hand.” She muttered before dashing off to the restroom to relieve her stomach of all its contents.

T'Challa wished to join her, but he was swallowing his bile as best he could. He would relieve his stomach of its contents later, for now, he needed facts.

“So, they thought to have them make a prodigy.”

Winter nodded. “They walked in, pointed a gun to Yensen’s head and told them to fuck.”

“And you know this because…”

“I was the one holding the gun.” He answered without preamble or shame. “I was also being given a cocktail drugs that made me eager to please and very obedient. I wasn’t exactly in my right mind or in control. They told me to point a gun and tell someone to fuck, so I pointed the gun, and told them to fuck.”

T’Challa nodded solemnly. He didn’t doubt the man, there was something about him that screamed that the unvarnished truth was all he would or could offer.

“I hate to ask but…”

“Until he started having morning sickness. Then it stopped. When he was far enough along they decided to use him as a party favor. It was also about the time that whatever programing they had me under started chipping away. I was still under the cocktail, but I knew what I was seeing was wrong. I just couldn’t do anything. They were my Masters, and I did as I was told or… or else.”

“Or else…” he muttered.

“Then he had Kamala.”

“Barely 16 and already with pup.” He muttered

“But there was an unexpected complication.”

“I fear to even ask.”

“It was the Ten Rings. They weren’t exactly the Benevolent Society of Thuggery. They had been experimenting on Yensen. They got their hands their hands on something called Terrigen Mist; a ‘Goodwill Offering’, from Hydra, who had their eyes on reclaiming me. They had no intentions of letting their own personal guard dog off it’s leash, so they took it and used it on Yensen for shits and giggles.”

There was a migraine building behind his eyes. Every time he thought it couldn’t get more twisted it did.

“And what happened?”

“He got wrapped up in some fucked up green cocoon and came out different. He could make his arms and legs stretch like mad. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. But he didn’t tell them that. They thought it was a dud gift. He didn’t want to be used a weapon, so he and I knew.He told me not to tell, and like I said. I did what I was told. So I didn’t tell.”

“So when Kamala was born… she was different too. But they didn’t tell them that either. So they thought the ‘Goodwill Offering’ was bullshit and sent me off to kill em.”

“And you did.”

“I did. I might not have gotten all of them, but I got the primary base and the entire upper echelon. I had very specific orders. Kill, destroy, but bring back anything that they might be able to use later. It was kind of a broad order, but I was in enough of my own mind to understand what they meant and know that failure meant torture.”

“Did you find anything?”

“You could say that.” He muttered. “It was right about the time that S.H.I.E.L.D. started the Avengers Initiative. Somehow Hydra had managed to DNA samples from the recruits: The Consultant, Nick Fury, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America. And they had managed to synthesize the DNA into sperm.”

T’Challa was going to be ill.

Shuri slammed down a tumbler of Wakanda’s hardest liquor, took the arm from him, and ordered him. “Drink.”

“Like I said. It looked important, so I stole it. This is, literally, my fault.”

Shuri shook her head from the chaise lounge where she cradled the arm against her chest with one hand and a glass of sheri in the other. “Orders are order. Torture is torture. Self preservation is an instinct that no living being can ignore.”

T’Challa downed the liquor with a hiss.

“So you brought it back after setting Hydra ablaze and they saw an opportunity.”

Winter nodded. “They let Tony breastfeed for a couple of months and then gave him an ultimatum. Do as we say, or we take the pup out to the desert to die.”

Twin shivers ran down their spines. “No one can blame him for acquiescing to such a thing. So they did artificial insemination?”

“No.”

“No?”

“That’s not nearly painful enough.”

T’Challa stood up, walked to the restroom and threw up.

Shuri had her head in her hands. “So the old fashioned way?”

“Yes. They had him in a makeshift lab for hours on end. And whenever they felt like it, they strapped him to a breeder, and set it to maximum speed.”

Shuri shook her head. “And he went through with it.”

“It wasn’t like he could fight back. You have to understand that they broke him down. The only thing that kept him going was Kamala and Yensen. Without those two he was a hollow shell. They said jump and it wasn’t a matter of asking ‘How high?’ so much as jumping and being beaten until he got the height right. It was bad. And Yensen was the only other person in the catacombs that spoke english. It wasn’t like I was a great conversationalist. I barely remembered how to do more than grunt at first.”

“Yensen was also the only one that cared about his wellbeing. He helped keep Tony from going insane. Yensen and Kamala were his lifelines. He clung to that.”

“And they chose to use The Consultant’s sperm first?”

“One of the brightest military minds, a strategist, natural born leader, a graduate from MIT, and a close personal friend of Tony Starks before his alleged demise? Of course they did.”

T’Challa returned to room and both siblings gave him a look of sheer horror.

“No one is supposed to know The Consultant's identity.”

He shrugged. “Hydra knew. So I knew.”

“Did you tell the Ten Rings?”

“They didn’t ask, and that wasn’t part of the parameters of the mission. They never said I had to give them all the details. They knew who the rest of them were.”

T’Challa sat down heavily, running a hand down his face. “So Riri is James Rhodes daughter.”

“Yes.”

“And after she was born?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

T’Challa looked at him quizzically.

“While he was pregnant with Kamala the metal plating that they had used to house the arc reactor started to corrode and started killing Tony. They had to work on a replacement while he was still carrying Kamala, but every element they tried didn’t do any better. So I...I snuck them some tools.” He shrugged helplessly. “I was the only one that noticed that he was struggling. At a certain point they made him leave his shirt on because they didn’t want to see the bump.”

“The damage was noticeable?”

“You could say that? It looked like his chest was becoming some fucked up circuit board.

“But you say you brought them equipment?”

“Yes, look,” he sighed. “They are terrorists. They aren’t exactly academically inclined. Yensen would draw rough sketches of things to look for and I’d bring it back if I could find it. Hell, I even brought things to them that looked like they might need them. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore than they did.”

The siblings looked at each other quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“They needed to create an entirely new element. One with certain properties that wouldn’t adversely interact with the arc reactor itself.”

T’Challa shook his head and growled internally. “So they did. They created an entirely new element in a cave in the middle of the desert.”

Winter nodded. “They had too.”

“And they managed to surgically insert the newly fabricated arc reactor casing while he was pregnant with Riri?”

Winter winced. “This is where it gets more complicated.” He sighed heavily.” See, they had a formula from a failed scientists they had acquired and summarily executed. They gave him the formula and told him to make it work. It was something to regrow limbs. They called it extremis. Highly volatile. It worked, but with consequences.”

“Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not.” He answered honestly. “The subjects tended to blow up if they got to emotional. Highly volatile, highly unstable. It was bound to fail, and it did. So as punishment they exposed him to the extremis… but with the new arc reactor, for whatever reason, it prevented it from affecting him. And then he found out he was pregnant again.”

T’Challa found himself taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Were there any complications?”

“Not that we know of?”

“What does that mean?” Shuri asked quizzically.

“It means what it means. There is something different about Riri. Both Tony and I know it, but it hasn’t manifested itself the way Kamala’s shrinking and enlarging did.”

“But Yensen--”

“He probably knew. We have our suspicions that may have been a leading factor that lead up to his eventual death. He wouldn’t let them near the pups. If he saw something then he kept it to himself to protect Tony and Riri.”

“And you haven’t seen anything out of the normal?”

“Other than her being very self conscious of everything she does? No. We have to wait. Pressuring her will only make it worse.”

T’Challa huffed in agreement. He didn’t have to like it, but forcing a girl to admit to something that she was hiding wouldn’t help matters at all.

“And then?”

Winter let out a small growl and clenched his fists. “They got greedy. They started experimenting on Tony. They made him expose himself to things they forced him to create. They wanted ‘Enhanced’ pups.”

Shuri had long since given up on alcohol and was sipping water as she knew no food would stay down. “What did they expose him too?”

“Radiation experiments. If a radiation blast could create a man that turned into a raging monster; then what could it do to an insect? Say… a spider. But it didn’t have the desired effect, or any effect as for as they could tell. So they put him in a room with radioactive spiders. He got bit… several times. But between extremis and the arc reactor, he didn’t die. And that made them angry.”

“Of course it did.”

“So back to the lab and back the breeder. And then he got pregnant.”

“Miles. James’s sperm?”

“Nick Fury’s. They had very specific plans. One at a time. I think they wanted to use them as bait eventually.”

Both nodded. “Sounds about right.”

“But, like with Kamala, side effects.”

“What kind of…”

“Extremis isn’t inherited, at least, we don’t think it is. But radioactive venom plus extremis equals, the best Tony could figure is that the extremis bonded to the venom instead of eradicating it and then the venom bonded to his DNA somehow because it’s radiation and it does what it wants. So, about a month after Miles was born the room was covered in spider webs.”

T’Challa cursed again.

“But they didn’t find out.”

“Because Tony asked me not to tell.” He paused, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Do you know how long it had been since someone asked me to do something? And unlike before, they didn’t give him downtime. The next day he was back in the lab and into the breeder.”

He liked to think himself a calm rational man, but this was becoming too much. Too many children, too fast. The boy couldn’t have barely been 18 and they were trying to get him pregnant for the third time.

“It took longer this time. Presumably because his body needed to recover. But you couldn’t tell them that. They wanted him pregnant. They wanted their party favor back. Someone was interfering with the process. It was the only explanation. It took about a year or two, maybe a little more for Gwen to come along. She was perfect… but--”

“With spider powers?”

“Clever too, don’t underestimate her, and the best aim of any person I’ve ever known. Never misses a shot, ever.”

“Clint Barton then.” A man that never wanted children suddenly with not just a child, but an ‘enhanced’ child.

“Presumably the breeding continued?”

“Yes. Yensen started working in the lab more so that Tony could spend time with the kids. Not seeing the kids almost drove him to despair. It’s also about the time that Amadeus showed up.”

T’Challa took a deep cleansing breath.

“He was barely 7 years old.”

“And the wisest soul that has ever existed. He was smart and compassionate. He helped with the babies immensely. But it also mean that they…” he cleared his throat. “expected more from Tony to keep them in food and supplies. Luckily he got pregnant with Peter not long after that, so the experiments stopped, but… the rest--”

Shuri stood up suddenly. “If these men aren’t dead I will slay them myself. I will not need the Dora at my side. I will take them on myself.” She declared passionately.

“Get in line, sister.” He ground out, before clearing his throat. “Peter?”

“Black Widow’s. With the spider powers”

“How fitting...”

“And a weaker version of the serum I was given. I can smell it.”

T’Challa couldn’t help but think of Natasha. ‘Love is for children.’ He wondered how she would react to this twist of fate

“But that’s only five. He’s been gone nearly a decade.”

Winter winced, looked away.

“Yeah, his body… he wasn’t in the best of shape. They didn’t allow him to give birth proper. C-Section each time. His stomach is a wreck. His stomach muscles are probably only kept together by extremis. One of his breasts is completely deflated. Yensen couldn’t figure it out. He theorized that his body was overcompensating because they weren’t exactly given lavish meals. They gave them just enough to survive and be kinda healthy. But he gave most of his food to the kids. So, he wasn’t exactly in the best shape. And he’s reproductive system… after almost 6 years of constant breeding with only a man with basic medical knowledge and an advanced engineering degree. Something had to give.”

“The last one is Steve Rogers.”

Winter nodded. “He got pregnant. A couple times. But … he miscarried. He wrecked himself over it. And they wrecked him over it too. In their minds there was only one explanation. Yensen.”

The pencil T’Challa was holding snapped in two.

“They were convinced Yensen had a soft spot for Tony and was causing the miscarriages. They were right to some degree. Yensen did have a soft spot for Tony. It was mutual really. They… they took comfort in each other when things got rough. The kids had a room off to the side, and they were quiet about it. But I have enhanced hearing. They were making love.” He added softly.

“But they were convinced that he was doing something to cause the miscarriages and well… they didn’t make me to do it thankfully. They took them both outside for the first time in years and … execution style, right in front of him.” He paused before adding. “I can still hear his screams at night.”

“Kamala didn’t understand. I mean, how do you understand that your daddy is gone and never coming back. She threw a right fit… that’s where I came in.”

They both jerked up suddenly.

“They decided that it was time to take me off the cocktail. Apparently it was getting a little expensive to synthesize it and compensate for the fact that I was getting immune to it at certain dosages. So… I went from bodyguard to …  half assed babysitter? I’m still confused on what they expected to happen. Luckily I learn quick, and the kids…” he sighed. “All they had in the world is each other, Yensen and their Boba. The attachment happened pretty quickly. I was someone new, with new stories, and new items to describe, and new colors to help them dream about. I’d been outside and had seen the sun… and…”

“It’s all so very horrible. But we made it work, somehow. But Kamala was starting to understand why Boba came back so sore it hurt to pick her up. Riri and Miles were catching on too. And Tony… He was in mourning. He got pregnant twice more and miscarried.”

“We slept in the same bed, as far away from each other as possible, but I could hear everything he said to himself. It broke something in. They… when they were breeding him they…. I think it’s called orgasm denial?”

They groaned.

“Yeah, they weren’t big on letting him have a release. So, I offered. He was touch starved. The only touch he got was being pounded into while on his flat on his back, literally. They liked for him to see them. It was a fucked up power trip. They used to make him dance for them in barely there lingerie before laying on his back and lifting his legs for them. It was … sick.”

Shuri walked over to the window overlooking the kingdom and asked. “They were always fucking him, why didn’t he get pregnant from them?”

“Beta’s. If they didn’t start out beta’s they had a vasectomy. They could cum, but all they had was blanks. And if the leader could find evidence that they had it undone…” He cocked an imaginary shotgun and shot it.

“Finally they decided to let him rest for a couple of months. Let his body heal. No experiments, no beatings. Just inventing and engineering and the occasional blow job.”

“But Nova…”

“Yip… He and I… it was complicated. But I… you can call it whatever you want, but I started to love him. I do. I’ve never said the words because… well, those were Yensen’s last words… and well…” he cleared his throat. “It only happened once, but that’s all it took. He got pregnant and that was all the proof they needed that it was still possible for him to conceive. Nova was born and he went right back into the breeder… but it was worse… so much worse…”

“I’m afraid to ask how.”

“Four more miscarriages over a year and a half and then they decided to switch tactics. See, there were new recruits to the Avengers.”

The glass Shuri was holding shattered on the floor.

Winter got up and walked over to their bags. He search and searched until he found the vials he was looking for. He sat them down on the desk and T’Challa nearly fell faint.

Where there had once been only five vials were now five more each labeled. “Falcon” “Ant-Man” “Scarlet Witch” “QuickSilver” and “Black Panther”.

T’Challa felt light headed, his head was swimming. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Shuri with a grim expression. If any of these Ten Rings had survived, they may pray for death soon.