The Mission
Tony was around eight years old now. He looked well and healthy now. There was some kind of robot in front of him and he was gently putting the last pieces in place when the door opened and Pierce walked in. Tony looked up and smiled.
“Look sir. I’ve built a…”
Then he noticed the look on Pierce’s face and stopped.
“What is it? Something happened?”
Pierce sat down on the couch and petted the seat next to him. Tony went over and sat there. He didn’t look scared in any way. Pierce placed his arm on the boy’s shoulder and said slowly:
“I’m sorry I have to tell you about it this way but I have to. Winter is gone.”
Tony’s eyes widened.
“Wha…? How?”
“He was on a mission. Something went wrong. They found his body. Or rather the mess that was his body. They recognized the arm. I’m sorry James.”
Tony was shaking. Suddenly all the glass in the room exploded. Pierce ducked the flying books and looked nervously over to the boy. Tony’s eyes were shining blue and the blue glow was on literally everything in the room. The man moved closer to him and hugged the child.
“James. Listen to me James. I know you are mad. But I know who killed Winter. Why don’t you save the energy to take them down instead of destroying this place.”
It took a few minutes but in the end the blue disappeared and Tony collapsed exhausted. He nodded.
“You’ll… help me?”
“Yes James.”
He picked the boy up and carried him over to the bed. He put Tony on the bed and placed a blanket over him.
“Sleep now James. You’ll have to train to be able to take on them.”
“Who are they?”
“SHIELD.”
Tony stilled.
“Aunt Peggy.”
Pierce looked at him sharply. But then he smiled and ruffled the boy’s hair.
“Sleep James. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Tony nodded slowly and Pierce begun to head towards the door. When he turned around on the doorstep he saw Tony hug the gun that Winter had left him and finally did the boy start to cry. He closed the door and went quickly into the laboratory. A smirk appeared on his face when he saw the cryo chamber with the Winter Soldier in it.
“Get the chamber on a truck and get him away from here. Go to Germany and do not come back until you are called. The boy can not find out that the Asset is still alive. Understood?”
The men nodded.
“Yes sir. Hail Hydra!”
Before anyone could say anything Friday played another one.
Tony was around nine now. He was wearing fitting black clothes and his eyes were glowing blue. About 20 men were attacking him. He used his powers to keep them at a distance. The way he moved was almost as if he was flowing. When one of the men kicked at his legs he used his power to lift himself into the air. He fired at the man on the floor knocking him unconscious. He landed with catlike grace and kept fighting until every man was down. The door in one of the corners opened and Pierce walked in.
“Good job James. I think you are ready.”
The blue eyes changed to brown for a second only to go back to blue immediately after. Pierce smiled. Then he threw something at the boy but before it could hit him it halted in mid-air and floated slowly towards Tony. He grabbed it and his eyes widened. It was a black mask. Almost identical to the one…
“Winter.”
Pierce shook his head.
“We had one made for you. His would not fit you. But I remembered you talking about an Aunt Peggy when we spoke about SHIELD. We wouldn’t want her to figure out who you are. Right Tony?”
The power around the boy shifted to protect him from Pierce. But the man simply raised an eyebrow.
“You can be calm. I’ve known from the first day. I don’t care what name you use. If you feel more comfortable with James then we’ll use it. But SHIELD and Howard’s friend Obadiah Stane are still looking for you. Now they only want to use you as a replacement for your father. So I guess it will be better if they don’t figure out the connection between Tony Stark and James Winter. Am I right?”
The power drew back a bit but was still around Tony. As if he didn’t want to put it away for even a second. And his eyes still stayed blue. A few seconds later the boy lifted the mask and put it on. Then he dragged his black hood up. The only thing that still stood out were the eyes but neither he or Pierce seemed to notice that.
“Good. The mission is in New York. One of the bigger SHIELD bases. The last place Winter was in. The place where they found his body.”
Tony nodded and headed towards the door. A few men were already standing outside waiting for him. He stepped closer to one of the cars and his power extended itself to open one of the doors. He sat down on the front passenger seat and slammed the door shut. The men got in after him and they drove off in silence. Only one of the men had tried to make a conversation. He leaned forward and asked with a smirk:
“You a big fan of the Asset right?”
The energy shot towards him and he was choked for a few seconds before Tony let him go.
“Be glad that I need everyone on this mission.”
After that the men had not tried to say anything else and were visibly shaken. They stopped outside a big building. When they got out and met with the men from the other car everyone was very clearly keeping away from the boy.
“Okey there are three people on the ground level. They are acting as a smoke screen. Trained agents but most probably not any bigger threat. They are supposed to say that it is a place where you can forge your papers. The real base starts on the second floor.”
Tony was standing quiet for a few seconds, his brain processing what he just heard. Then he nodded and said:
“You three take care of the guards down here. Then keep guard in case they manage to call in backup. Two of you are coming with me. Four are going to take the emergency stairs on the outside and get up on the ceiling. Make sure no one escapes that way. Work your way downwards. We’ll catch them in between us.”
For a second everyone was staring at him but then the men that had been riding in Tony’s car nodded and headed towards the emergency stairs. Tony and the other five headed towards the front door. Tony opened it with his power and three of the agents rushed in shooting. Two of them stood outside with Tony. Then one of the men stuck his head out and said:
“All clear here.”
Tony and his two men strode in. The three SHIELD agents were lying dead on the floor. Tony nodded and headed towards the stairs. Before he got there he turned and looked over to the two men.
“They will know by now that we are here. When we get up there you need to do only one thing. Shoot. Don’t care about anyone shooting at you. I’ll take care of that.”
The men nodded, too stunned to say anything. Then they went up. As soon as they opened the door shots were fired at them but all of the bullets were deflected by the shield that Tony had created. The SHIELD agents were thrown off by the fact that there was a mutant among the Hydra agents but they collected themselves rather quickly when a woman rushed in with her gun drawn. Seeing her Tony lost his concentration for a second which resulted in one of his men being killed. The woman looked over to him and her eyes widened when she saw the blue eyes.
“Tony?”
Instead of answering he shot his energy forward and knocked all the agents unconscious. All but the woman. She was staring at him in disbelief. His man shot at her but Tony simply stopped the bullet.
“You touch her, I kill you”
Then he turned towards her and said calmly:
“Agent Peggy Carter. I hope we can work together right now because I would hate to have to take you back with me. So I’ll ask one question and then you are free to go.”
He took a step closer to her and his voice got filled with hatred.
“Where is the monster that killed Winter?”
For a second Peggy was simply staring at him. Then she took a small key out and threw it towards Tony. It stopped before him just like the mask had done before. She nodded towards a desk that stood next to a window.
“Every file about the Winter Soldier is there.”
He walked over to the desk and opened it. The file was not thick at all. It was clear that SHIELD didn’t know much about the Soldier. Tony flipped the last side open and stilled. The last side was from two years earlier. He looked up at the woman.
“It says nothing about who killed him.”
She nodded.
“And trust me Tony when I say that it would be there if it happened.”
He breathed hard. Suddenly it felt like the mask was suffocating him. He reached a hand up and took the mask off, pulling the hood down at the same time. His face was a mixture of relief, pain and hate. But before he could do or say anything the man had pulled a device out and pushed a button on it while pointing it away from himself. Tony didn’t manage to react. The shockwave hit both him and the woman. But while she had been lucky to hit the couch and simply fainted because of the pressure from the wave, Tony had hit the wall and blacked out. The man quickly lifted him up and ran out of the room. On the first floor he motioned for the three men down there to follow him. He threw the boy into the back seat and drove off, the three men following him in the other car. Well at the Hydra base he rushed to the lab holding the boy over his shoulder. Seeing him Pierce narrowed his eyes.
“What’s going on?”
The man put Tony on the chair they had used for the Winter Soldier and strapped him down. Then he turned towards Pierce.
“Carter appeared and he wouldn’t let us kill her. Then he asked her about who killed the Winter Soldier. She gave him keys to the desk where they kept Asset’s files. From them he figured out that the Asset was not killed by SHIELD. He seemed to lose concentration for a moment so I shocked him and Carter and got him back here. We left four men behind but they know what to do in case they get captured.”
Pierce nodded and turned towards one of the men in the lab coats.
“Do it. Before he wakes up.”
The man took up a big syringe and plunged the needle into Tony’s arm. But instead of blood it seemed to draw something blue from him. It went slow. About 15 minutes later the syringe was taken away. Pierce lifted a bucket of water and doused it on top of the boy. Tony woke up and begun to cough. When he had calmed down he looked up at Pierce with hate.
“You killed him. To get to my powers.”
Pierce smirked.
“You really thought I would like a freak like you? No. You were my little soldier. We just had to raise you the right way. But the Asset was always putting himself between you and me. So he had to disappear. And now. We have exactly what we wanted.”
Tony almost growled at him.
“I will not work for you anymore. I will…”
And then he stilled. His eyes became confused and he quickly glimpsed towards the glass on the other side of the room. They were brown. His eyes were brown. He turned back to Pierce with a scared expression.
“You took it. You…”
He started to shake. Pierce nodded.
“Yes. We took it. You won’t use it to help us so you don’t need it anymore. You don’t deserve it. One day, it will be given to someone else. To someone who will never turn away from us. Who will serve Hydra. You are useless.”
He motioned towards the man in the coat and he put another needle in the boy’s arm. But this time he didn’t take anything. Instead he injected the boy with something and a few seconds later Tony fell asleep. Pierce undid the restraints and nodded towards some men.
“Take him into the city. Leave him on the street. It’s freezing cold outside. He will not survive.”
The man lifted Tony up and went out. He drove into the city and then opened the door and simply pushed the partly awakened boy out into the snow. Tony rolled a bit and came to a halt next to a building. The man drove off and Tony slowly sat up. His fingers were moving on their own accord and he seemed lost. But then his eyes became cold. He stood up on shaky legs and started to head towards the hospital. He opened the door and the receptionist quickly went around the desk to get to him. But before she managed to do that he had collapsed. She kneeled next to him and looked over his pale face.
“Hey. Darling. You all right? What’s going on?”
He looked up at her and focused his eyes for a few seconds.
“I’m Tony Stark.”
Then he passed out.