Chapter Text
Movement One: Preliminary Proceedings
Geneva. The Palais des Nations. A Tuesday.
The building had seen a great deal.
It had been built in 1929 by an international community that believed, with the particular optimism of people who had recently survived one catastrophic war and had not yet started the next one, that if you gave nations a sufficiently impressive room to argue in they might eventually stop arguing with weapons. This belief had proven, in the intervening century, to be somewhat optimistic. But the building remained. Impressive. Stolid. Possessed of the specific dignity of an institution that had outlasted every prediction of its demise by simply continuing to exist.
Dr. Amara Osei had been coming to this building for thirty-one years.
She had presided over war crimes tribunals. She had mediated territorial disputes between nations that had been killing each other for centuries. She had sat across a table from heads of state who were, she had privately concluded, no more rational than anyone else, simply better dressed. She had heard arguments that tested the limits of legal language, of human imagination, of her own considerable patience.
She had not, until this week, presided over a hearing that had generated its own social media following before the opening statement.
She looked at the gallery.
The gallery looked back.
It was, she thought, a great deal of people to have opinions about events they had not witnessed, individuals they had never met, and legal questions they had not studied. She had been informed by her clerk — a young man named Philippe who had the specific exhaustion of someone who had spent three days monitoring seventeen different online platforms at his supervisor's request — that the factions in the gallery represented approximately four distinct positions on the matter before the court, that two of those factions were not speaking to each other, that one of them had brought signs which had been confiscated at the door, and that someone had already started a live blog.
The live blog was called JUSTICE FOR TONY (AND/OR BUCKY) (MOSTLY TONY): A GENEVA DISPATCH.
She had read the first three entries.
She had closed the tab.
She arranged her papers.
At the respondents' table, Jennifer Walters was doing what Jennifer Walters did when she was nervous, which was to review her notes with the focused intensity of a woman who was not nervous at all and had simply chosen to review her notes for the fourteenth time as a purely optional exercise.
Her notes said, at the top of the first page, in her own handwriting:
THINGS I CANNOT SAY IN COURT: 1. My client was not always his own best advocate. 2. The fandom's attempts to help have made this significantly harder. 3. Thaddeus Ross has no business being in this room. 4. The Accords are a mess and I know it and Matt Murdock knows it and Dr. Osei definitely knows it. 5. My client would hate this hearing. He would hate it and he would make a joke about it and the joke would be funny and it would still be deflection and I would have to tell him to stop.
She had written this list at two in the morning in her hotel room, which was when her honest assessments tended to emerge.
Below the list, in slightly more controlled handwriting:
THINGS I CAN SAY IN COURT: 1. Tony Stark acted with heroic intent in circumstances of extraordinary complexity. 2. The Sokovia Accords represented a good faith attempt to address legitimate concerns. 3. My client's actions in Siberia require context. 4. The Ultron situation requires significant context. 5. Everything requires context.
She looked at point five.
She thought: context is not the same as excuse.
She thought: I know that. I just need the gallery to know that.
She looked at the gallery.
She thought: the gallery does not know that.
At the petitioner's table, Matt Murdock was doing nothing that looked like preparation because everything Matt Murdock did that looked like nothing was, in fact, preparation.
He was sitting with his hands flat on the table and his head slightly tilted and he was listening.
He could hear Jennifer Walters' heart rate — elevated but controlled, the rhythm of someone managing professional anxiety with considerable practice. He could hear the gallery — a specific frequency of collective agitation that he had learned, over years of courtroom work, meant people who had strong opinions and limited information. He could hear Philippe the clerk eating something crunchy at his desk despite this being explicitly a no-food proceeding.
He could hear, from three seats to his left, the measured breathing of his client.
James Buchanan Barnes sat with his hands in his lap and his eyes forward and breathed in the way Matt had come to understand meant he was doing the thing his therapist in Wakanda had taught him — counting, grounding, staying present in a room that was asking a great deal of him simply by existing.
Matt had met a lot of clients in his career. He had defended people who were innocent and people who were guilty and people who were somewhere in the complicated human territory between those two points where most people actually lived. He had sat with people who were frightened and people who were angry and people who had given up.
He had never, before this case, sat with a client whose entire legal situation required him to argue, in an international tribunal, that the person sitting next to him had not been sufficiently present in his own body for several decades to be held responsible for what that body had done.
He had done the reading.
He had read the Wakanda files.
He had read Shuri's medical report, transcribed into Braille by a colleague who had called him afterward to say Matt I don't know what they did to this man but this report is the most upsetting thing I have ever transcribed and I once transcribed the testimony from the Vormir incident.
He had read the medical report and he had sat with it for a long time.
Then he had opened his case file and written, in the Braille that nobody else in this room could read:
Three arguments. Any one sufficient. Together: a wall. 1. Precedent — Barton. Belova. Romanoff. 2. Identity — the person was not there. 3. Medical — Shuri's report. Limbic system. Decision making. Executive function. Destroyed. They brought him here anyway. We will remind them why that was a mistake.
He had closed the file.
He had listened to his client breathe.
He had said, quietly: "You okay?"
Bucky had said: "I've been in worse rooms."
Matt had thought: yes. I know. That's the whole case.
The doors at the back of the chamber opened.
Thaddeus Ross walked in.
Matt Murdock's head tilted approximately two degrees.
He could hear Ross's heart rate — the elevated, slightly irregular rhythm of a man who was accustomed to being the most powerful person in any room and was currently deciding whether he was the most powerful person in this one.
He was not.
He had not been informed of this yet.
Ross looked at the central chair — the large one, the chair of the presiding officer, the chair behind which Dr. Amara Osei was currently sitting with the stillness of someone who had been still in important chairs for thirty-one years and had no intention of moving.
He looked at that chair for approximately one second too long.
Dr. Osei looked at him.
She did not say anything.
She did not need to.
Ross sat down in the witness preparation area.
Philippe the clerk made a note.
Jennifer Walters, without looking up from her notes, permitted herself one very small smile.
@JUSTICE_FOR_TONY_DISPATCH Ross just walked in and tried to take the presiding chair with his EYES and Dr. Osei looked at him and he sat down. She didn't say a word. She just LOOKED at him. This woman.
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@TeamCapForever Bucky just walked into that room and sat down next to Matt Murdock and the pro-Tony section of the gallery booed and I want everyone to know that Matt Murdock turned his head toward them and just. Listened. Like he was cataloguing something. I'm not a pro-Tony person and even I found that unsettling.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce Jennifer Walters is representing Tony Stark and I just want to say she's doing her best with what she has which is a lot but also the gallery should know that several of us have prepared supplementary materials that we believe will significantly assist her case.
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@jenniferwalterslaw As a law student: the "supplementary materials" the gallery has prepared are not going to assist Jennifer Walters' case. I have seen the supplementary materials. They include a forty-seven page document arguing Tony Stark had no free will during Age of Ultron, a bibliography that cites three fanfiction works as primary sources, and a section titled "Why Steve Rogers Is Basically Hitler." None of this is going to help.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce @jenniferwalterslaw the Hitler comparison is not in the main document it's in the appendix
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@jenniferwalterslaw @TonyStarkDefenseForce it is still in the document.
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Dr. Osei called the hearing to order at nine-seventeen on a Tuesday morning, which was seventeen minutes later than scheduled, because the gallery had required additional time to be seated after an incident at the security checkpoint involving the confiscation of four handmade banners, a foam finger, and what Philippe had described in his incident report as a concerning number of printed photographs of Secretary Ross with the word ACCOUNTABILITY written across them in red marker.
She had read the incident report.
She had told Philippe to file it under G for Gallery, Inevitable Incidents Of.
She looked at the room.
The room looked back.
She said: "This is a hearing of the UN Enhanced Individuals Oversight Committee into the events of and surrounding the Sokovia Accords, the Leipzig airport incident, the Siberia incident, and associated matters. I am Dr. Amara Osei, presiding. These proceedings are formal. They are recorded. They are not a debate forum, a fan convention, or a social media event, though I understand several of you are treating them as all three simultaneously."
She paused.
"The gallery will conduct itself accordingly or the gallery will conduct itself elsewhere. This is not a negotiation."
The gallery was briefly, relatively quiet.
She looked at the two tables.
"Counsel will identify themselves for the record."
Jennifer Walters stood.
"Jennifer Walters, admitted to the bar in California and four additional states, currently holding temporary international practice certification for the purposes of these proceedings. I represent the interests of Anthony Edward Stark, deceased, and the evidentiary record relating to his actions during the relevant period."
She sat.
Matt Murdock stood.
He did not look at anyone in particular, which was either because he was blind or because he had already assessed everyone in the room by sound and had no need to look, and possibly both.
"Matthew Murdock, admitted to the bar in New York state, currently holding temporary international practice certification for the purposes of these proceedings. I represent James Buchanan Barnes."
He sat.
The gallery made sounds.
Dr. Osei did not look at the gallery.
"The committee has received and reviewed the written submissions from both parties. We have also received," she paused, "forty-three unsolicited written submissions from members of the public, seven of which cited works of fan fiction as evidentiary sources, two of which were themselves works of fan fiction, and one of which was a forty-seven page document that I will charitably describe as ambitious."
Jennifer Walters looked at the ceiling.
Matt Murdock's expression did not change.
Bucky Barnes, very quietly, said: "What's fan fiction?"
Matt said, equally quietly: "I'll explain later."
"The committee," Dr. Osei continued, "will not be admitting fan fiction into evidence. The committee will also not be admitting director's commentary, deleted scenes, or what several submissions referred to as 'the Word of God' from the Russo Brothers, which I understand to be a concept from fan culture indicating authorial intent. We will be working from the established factual record. Events as they occurred. Statements as they were made. Evidence as it exists."
She looked at Ross.
"Secretary Ross."
Ross straightened.
"You are here as a witness and a subject of inquiry. You are not here as a presiding officer. You are not here as a committee member. You will be called to give testimony at the appropriate time. Until then you will sit quietly."
Ross opened his mouth.
Dr. Osei looked at him.
He closed it.
Philippe made a note.
@JUSTICE_FOR_TONY_DISPATCH DR. OSEI JUST TOLD ROSS TO SIT QUIETLY AND HE DID IT. WHO IS THIS WOMAN. WHERE HAS SHE BEEN.
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@TeamCapForever The committee is not admitting fan fiction as evidence and I know this is correct and proper and I am still slightly disappointed because I had a very good fic prepared.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce The committee is not admitting fan fiction as evidence which means the forty-seven page document we prepared will not be considered and I think this is a significant oversight and also the Hitler comparison really was just in the appendix
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@jenniferwalterslaw Jennifer Walters just looked at the ceiling when Dr. Osei mentioned the forty-seven page document. I am choosing to believe she has read it. Her expression suggests she has read it. Her expression suggests it did not help.
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@Matt_Murdock_Appreciation Matt Murdock has not changed his expression once since entering this room. He is sitting with his hands flat on the table and his head slightly tilted and he is listening. To everything. I repeat: to everything. Ross should be significantly more concerned than he appears.
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Dr. Osei reviewed her opening notes.
She had written them herself, which she always did, because the summaries produced by committee staff tended toward the diplomatic and she had long since concluded that diplomacy was occasionally the enemy of clarity.
Her notes said:
The Sokovia Accords: a document produced in haste, under political pressure, with significant input from a man who will shortly be testifying as a witness to his own misconduct. Evaluate accordingly.
The Leipzig incident: enhanced individuals on both sides. Property damage. No civilian casualties. Multiple enhanced individuals subsequently imprisoned without trial in an underwater facility. Note: no trial. Underwater.
The Siberia incident: three people in a room. One of them watched a video and attempted to kill another. The legal characterisation of this action will be the central dispute of these proceedings. Prepare for extraordinary arguments.
The Ultron question: this is not formally part of the committee's remit. It will come up anyway. It always comes up. Be ready.
The gallery: I have presided over war crimes tribunals with more decorum. Manage accordingly.
She looked up.
"This hearing will proceed as follows," she said. "We will begin with the question of the Sokovia Accords — their drafting, their ratification, and their implementation. We will then examine the specific incidents cited in the committee's mandate. Witness testimony will be taken in the order established in the written schedule. Counsel will have opportunity to question witnesses. The gallery will not have opportunity to question witnesses. The gallery will not have opportunity to address the committee. The gallery will have opportunity to observe and to reflect, which I appreciate may be a novel experience for some of those present."
She let that land.
"Counsel. Are there preliminary matters?"
Jennifer Walters stood.
"Dr. Osei, the respondent would like to note for the record that the evidentiary scope of these proceedings should be limited to events within the established factual record of the relevant films — I beg your pardon, the relevant documented incidents — and should not extend to ancillary materials including director's commentary, prequel comics, or the Marvel Studios Official Timeline except where those materials are formally accepted as canonical record."
Dr. Osei: "So noted. Mr. Murdock?"
Matt Murdock stood.
"The petitioner has one preliminary matter. The committee has received the medical report prepared by Princess Shuri of Wakanda following her examination of James Barnes. We ask that this report be formally entered into evidence as Petitioner's Exhibit A."
He placed a document on the table.
"We will be returning to it," he said, "at length."
He sat.
The gallery, which had obtained a copy of the Shuri report through means that Philippe had not been able to fully account for, made significant noise.
Dr. Osei did not look at the gallery.
She looked at Jennifer Walters.
Jennifer Walters was looking at the document Matt Murdock had placed on the table with the expression of someone who had already read it and had been hoping, in some purely professional capacity, that it would not be entered this early.
It was the expression of someone who knew that document was the beginning of the end of several arguments she had been preparing to make.
She made a note.
The note said: He saved it for last in the opening. He has two more things behind it. Find out what they are.
She already knew what they were.
She had done the same reading.
She just hadn't wanted to think about them before breakfast.
@jenniferwalterslaw Matt Murdock entered the Shuri medical report as Petitioner's Exhibit A in the OPENING PRELIMINARY MATTERS. Before the first witness. Before opening statements. He put it on the table and said "we will be returning to it at length" and sat down. This is called controlling the narrative. This is called knowing exactly what you're doing. Take notes.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce Why is everyone talking about the Shuri report. Brain damage doesn't mean you have no responsibility. Tony had health issues too. The palladium poisoning in Iron Man 2 affected his behaviour significantly and nobody talks about—
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@jenniferwalterslaw @TonyStarkDefenseForce The palladium poisoning was resolved. Tony replaced the palladium core. His health condition was cured. The arc reactor shrapnel situation was also resolved in Iron Man 3 when he had the shrapnel removed and threw the reactor in the ocean. These are not ongoing conditions. The Shuri report documents structural neurological damage caused by seventy years of HYDRA procedures. These are not equivalent situations. Please do not make this argument in the hearing. Jennifer Walters has enough problems.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce @jenniferwalterslaw I was just saying
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@Matt_Murdock_Appreciation the palladium poisoning was RESOLVED. the arc reactor shrapnel was REMOVED. these are CURED CONDITIONS. Bucky's limbic system damage was caused by SEVENTY YEARS of HYDRA PROCEDURES and is DOCUMENTED by SHURI OF WAKANDA. I cannot believe I have to type these words. I cannot believe this is where we are.
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Dr. Osei called a fifteen minute recess at ten-forty-three to allow the gallery to compose itself following what Philippe's incident report would later describe as a significant disagreement between the pro-Stark and pro-Barnes factions regarding the medical equivalence of palladium poisoning and documented limbic system damage, resolved without physical altercation but not without volume.
She used the fifteen minutes to drink her coffee.
She had learned, over thirty-one years, to drink her coffee during recesses because the alternative was to let it go cold, and cold coffee was one of the few things in her career that she had found genuinely demoralising.
She was joined, briefly, by Philippe.
"How are we doing?" she asked.
Philippe consulted his tablet. "The live blog has fourteen thousand readers. Someone has started a betting pool on whether Jennifer Walters will Hulk out. The current odds are—"
"Philippe."
"Yes, Dr. Osei."
"I don't need the odds."
"No, Dr. Osei."
He paused.
"They're not in her favour," he said. "Statistically speaking."
Dr. Osei drank her coffee.
"Call the room back to order," she said. "We have a great deal to get through and I would like to finish this decade."
When the room reconvened, Jennifer Walters stood for her opening statement.
She had written five drafts of it.
The first draft had been comprehensive, detailed, and had argued that Tony Stark was a hero whose flaws should be understood in context and whose contributions to the survival of the universe outweighed his mistakes.
The second draft had been shorter and had argued that the Sokovia Accords represented a reasonable response to legitimate concerns and that Tony's support for them demonstrated moral seriousness.
The third draft had been shorter still and had focused almost entirely on the Siberia incident and why the context of Tony's emotional state mattered.
The fourth draft had been one page and had said, essentially: my client was a human being, not a symbol, and he deserves to be evaluated as one.
The fifth draft was what she delivered.
It was not the draft she had planned to deliver.
It was the draft she had written at three in the morning after reading the Shuri report for the second time, and it was more honest than the previous four combined.
"Dr. Osei. Members of the committee. My name is Jennifer Walters and I represent the legacy and the record of Anthony Stark.
"I want to be clear about something before we begin. I am not here to tell you that Tony Stark was perfect. I am not here to tell you that his actions were without consequence or that consequence should not be examined. I am not here to argue that he bore no responsibility for anything that happened during the relevant period.
"Tony Stark was a complicated man. He was brilliant and he was reckless and he was genuinely heroic and he caused real harm and he knew it and he lived with it and at the end he gave his life to address the greatest consequence of the greatest failure of his generation — a failure that was, I want to be clear, shared across multiple individuals and institutions.
"What I am here to argue is this: that Tony Stark deserves to be evaluated as what he actually was. Not as a symbol. Not as a proxy for a fandom argument. Not as the perfect hero of one set of narratives or the perfect villain of another. As a man. With a full record. In context.
"The context will not always be flattering. I am aware of that. I have read the record.
"But context is not excuse. And accountability is not punishment. And I think by the end of these proceedings we will all have a clearer understanding of what those words actually mean.
"Thank you."
She sat.
The gallery made sounds.
Some of those sounds were approving. Some were not. Several were confused, which Jennifer Walters considered a reasonable response to a defence opening statement that had explicitly said her client had caused real harm.
She did not look at the gallery.
She looked at her notes.
Her notes said: Good. Now the hard part.
Matt Murdock stood for his opening statement.
He was quiet for a moment before he began. Not dramatically quiet. Not performatively quiet. Just the quiet of a man who was making sure he had the room's attention before he used it.
He had it.
"Dr. Osei. Members of the committee.
"James Barnes is fifty-one years old.
"He is also a hundred and seven years old. He is, depending on how you count the decades he spent in cryo-preservation between missions, somewhere in between.
"He was born in Brooklyn in 1917. He served in the United States Army in World War Two. He was captured by HYDRA in 1944 and subjected to experimental procedures without his consent. He fell from a train in the Alps in 1945 and was recovered by HYDRA and subjected to further procedures. For the next approximately seventy years, he was intermittently activated, deployed on missions he did not choose, and returned to cryo-preservation. During this period his memories were regularly wiped. His identity was systematically dismantled. He was not, in any legally meaningful sense, present.
"He did not choose his targets. He did not plan his missions. He did not remember what he had done between activations. The person who committed the acts attributed to him was not James Barnes. It was a construct created by HYDRA through the systematic destruction of James Barnes' personhood.
"I have three arguments for why James Barnes bears no legal culpability for those acts. I will be presenting them in full during the course of these proceedings.
"But I want to say something first, before the arguments.
"James Barnes is here today. He came voluntarily. He has cooperated with these proceedings in full. He has not sought to avoid accountability — he has sought to ensure that accountability, if it exists, is accurate. That it lands on the right person. That it means something.
"The question before this committee is not whether terrible things were done. They were. The question is whether the man sitting next to me is the person who did them.
"The evidence will show that he is not.
"Thank you."
He sat.
The gallery was, for approximately four seconds, completely silent.
Then it was not.
@TeamCapForever "He was not, in any legally meaningful sense, present." Matt Murdock said that. In the opening statement. Before any witnesses. I need to sit down.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce Matt Murdock's opening statement was very emotional and emotional arguments are not legal arguments and the committee should note that he did not once address the events in Siberia where Bucky Barnes CHOSE to fight Tony Stark and—
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@jenniferwalterslaw He said he had three arguments and would present them in full. He said it explicitly. He did not address Siberia in the opening because opening statements establish framework not evidence. This is first year law school. Please.
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@Matt_Murdock_Appreciation "The question is not whether terrible things were done. They were. The question is whether the man sitting next to me is the person who did them." I have read a lot of legal briefs and a lot of opening statements and this is one of the cleanest things I have ever heard said in a courtroom. Matt Murdock you absolute menace.
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@JUSTICE_FOR_TONY_DISPATCH Jennifer Walters said her client caused real harm in her OPENING STATEMENT. She said it. Herself. In court. The pro-Tony gallery is having a moment. I am also having a moment. I did not expect the defence to say that. I don't know what to do with that.
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@TeamCapForever @JUSTICE_FOR_TONY_DISPATCH It means she's a good lawyer who has read the record and knows that pretending her client was perfect is less defensible than arguing he was complicated. Which he was. Which is the point. Which the fandom refuses to accept. On both sides.
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Bucky Barnes had been watching Jennifer Walters since she sat down after her opening statement.
Matt noticed — he always noticed — the slight change in his client's breathing when something surprised him. Not alarm. Something quieter than alarm. Something closer to recognition.
"You okay?" he said quietly.
"She said he caused real harm," Bucky said. Not accusatory. Almost wondering.
"Yes."
"Tony's own lawyer said it."
"Yes."
A pause.
"That's... not what I expected."
"No," Matt said. "But it's what good lawyers do. She's better than the case she's been given."
Bucky was quiet for a moment.
Then he said: "Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse?"
Matt considered.
"Both," he said. "Probably both."
Dr. Osei called the first witness at eleven-thirty.
She called Thaddeus Ross.
Ross stood up with the bearing of a man who had been waiting to be called, had expected to be called first, and was gratified to have his expectations confirmed.
He walked to the witness stand.
He sat down.
He looked at the room with the expression of a man who was accustomed to rooms looking back at him respectfully.
Several parts of the room looked back at him with other expressions.
Matt Murdock tilted his head approximately two degrees to the right.
He could hear Ross's heart rate.
He could hear the specific quality of Ross's breathing — the controlled, slightly elevated rhythm of someone who had prepared a narrative and was ready to deliver it.
He could hear, underneath that, something else.
The thing underneath that Matt Murdock had learned to listen for.
The thing that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite guilt and was something in between that people carried when they knew, somewhere they didn't examine closely, that the story they were about to tell wasn't quite the shape of what had actually happened.
He opened his legal pad.
He wrote one word.
Ready.
Dr. Osei looked at Ross.
"Secretary Ross," she said. "You will begin by describing your role in the drafting and implementation of the Sokovia Accords."
Ross straightened.
"Certainly," he said. "The Sokovia Accords represented the international community's response to a pattern of destruction caused by enhanced individuals operating without oversight or accountability—"
"Secretary Ross," Jennifer Walters said.
Ross paused.
"I have a preliminary question," she said, "before we proceed to the substance. Can you confirm for the committee the process by which the Sokovia Accords were drafted? Specifically, which bodies were involved, how representatives to those bodies were selected, and what consultation process was undertaken with the populations of the affected nations?"
Ross looked at her.
Jennifer Walters looked back with the expression of a woman who already knew the answers and was asking anyway because the answers needed to be in the record.
"The Accords were developed by representatives of a hundred and seventeen nations—"
"Appointed representatives," Jennifer said. "Not elected."
"Representatives of their governments—"
"Some of which are not themselves democratically elected. Can you confirm how many of the hundred and seventeen signatory nations hold free and fair elections as rated by independent international observers?"
A pause.
"I don't have that figure—"
"Seventy-one," Jennifer said. "Of the hundred and seventeen nations whose representatives signed the Accords, seventy-one hold elections rated as free and fair by independent observers. The remaining forty-six are governed by systems ranging from constitutional monarchies to single-party states to — in three cases — governments that were themselves under active international sanctions at the time of signing."
She let that land.
"I raise this not to argue that the Accords lacked legitimacy entirely," she said, "but to establish for the record that the characterisation of them as 'the will of the international community' or as a straightforwardly democratic instrument requires some qualification. Particularly given that no direct public consultation was undertaken in any signatory nation regarding this specific legislation."
The gallery made sounds.
Some of those sounds were from the pro-Tony faction, who had not expected the defence to make this argument, and were uncertain what to do with it.
Some were from the Team Cap faction, who had expected this argument but had expected it from the other table.
Matt Murdock wrote a note.
The note said: Good. She's not going to pretend the Accords are clean. Smart.
Ross was looking at Jennifer Walters with the expression of a man who had been expecting a different kind of cross-examination.
"The Accords were drafted in response to—"
"Yes," Jennifer said. "We'll get to that. One more preliminary question. You drafted and presented the Accords. You subsequently served as the primary enforcement authority for the Accords. Can you confirm that you believe this represents an appropriate separation of powers?"
Ross opened his mouth.
He closed it.
He opened it again.
Matt Murdock tilted his head two degrees to the left.
He could hear the thing underneath.
Getting louder.
@JUSTICE_FOR_TONY_DISPATCH Jennifer Walters just established that 46 of the 117 Accord signatory nations are not fully democratic and that no public consultation was undertaken in any nation. She is doing this IN TONY'S DEFENCE. I need someone to explain to me what is happening.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce Why is Jennifer Walters attacking the Accords. She's supposed to be defending Tony. Tony supported the Accords. This is confusing and I don't like it.
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@jenniferwalterslaw She's not attacking the Accords. She's qualifying them. There's a significant legal difference. She's establishing that the Accords were a complex instrument with genuine legitimacy questions so that when she argues Tony's breach of them was contextually understandable, she's not arguing he broke something perfect. She's arguing he broke something flawed, under extreme circumstances, while trying to do the right thing. That's a much stronger argument than "the Accords were good and Tony was right and Steve was wrong." Please keep up.
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@TeamCapForever Wait. Is Tony's own lawyer arguing that the Accords were democratically questionable. Is that happening. Is that actually happening right now.
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@Matt_Murdock_Appreciation Matt Murdock has not asked a single question yet. He has written approximately four words in his notepad. He is just listening. He knows exactly what Jennifer Walters is doing and he is letting her do it because it helps both of them. These two lawyers are going to be terrifying together.
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Ross was still looking at Jennifer Walters.
Jennifer Walters was still waiting for an answer to her question about separation of powers.
The question hung in the air of the Palais des Nations with the specific weight of a question that everyone in the room knew the answer to and nobody on the witness stand wanted to say out loud.
"The committee," Ross began, "operated under the authority granted to it by—"
"Secretary Ross," Matt Murdock said.
It was the first time he had spoken since his opening statement.
The room, which had not quite forgotten he was there but had perhaps underweighted his presence, redirected its attention to the petitioner's table.
Matt Murdock was still sitting with his hands flat on the table. He had not opened his case files. He had not consulted his notes. He was simply sitting, with his head tilted slightly toward Ross, and speaking in the even, unhurried voice of someone who had all the time he needed.
"I have one question for this witness at this time," he said. "Secretary Ross. The enhanced individuals imprisoned in the Raft following the Leipzig incident — Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, Scott Lang, Wanda Maximoff — were they charged?"
A pause.
"They were detained—"
"Were they charged," Matt said. "With specific offences. Under specific laws. With specific evidence presented. Were they charged?"
Silence.
"Were they offered legal representation?"
Silence.
"Were they informed of the basis for their detention?"
Silence.
"Were they tried?"
The silence had a different quality now. The quality of a silence in which everyone in the room knew the answer and the answer was doing significant damage to several arguments that had been made in forty-seven page supplementary documents.
"No," Ross said. "The situation required—"
"Thank you," Matt said. "No further questions at this time."
He wrote something in his notepad.
The notepad said: Exhibit B: The Raft. Underwater prison. No charges. No trial. No legal representation. The democratic will of the international community.
He underlined the last sentence.
He underlined it twice.
The gallery had been quiet for approximately eleven seconds following Matt Murdock's questions.
This was, Philippe would later note in his incident report, the longest the gallery had been quiet since the proceedings began.
Then:
@TeamCapForever HE ASKED FOUR QUESTIONS. FOUR. AND ESTABLISHED THAT THE ACCORDS ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM WAS AN UNDERWATER PRISON WITH NO CHARGES, NO TRIAL, AND NO LEGAL REPRESENTATION. FOUR QUESTIONS. MATT MURDOCK.
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@TonyStarkDefenseForce The Raft was a necessary measure in extraordinary circumstances and the committee should understand that these were not ordinary criminals they were enhanced individuals with—
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@jenniferwalterslaw "Not ordinary criminals" is not a legal basis for detention without charge, trial, or representation under any instrument of international law. I cannot stress this enough. The Raft is Jennifer Walters' biggest problem and Matt Murdock just made sure it's in the record before she's had a chance to address it. He didn't attack Tony. He attacked Ross. Watch what she does with that.
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@Matt_Murdock_Appreciation Four questions. No notes. He didn't even open the case file. He just listened to Ross answer Jennifer Walters and identified the precise point where four questions would do maximum damage and then asked exactly those four questions and stopped. I am going to think about this cross examination for years.
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@JUSTICE_FOR_TONY_DISPATCH okay I came here as a Tony stan and I want to say that watching Matt Murdock establish the Raft in four questions while sitting completely still has made me feel some things I wasn't prepared for. Not about Tony. About Ross. I think I've been blaming the wrong person for some things.
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Jennifer Walters, during the eleven seconds of gallery silence, had written one thing in her notes.
Smart.
She looked at the clock.
It was twelve-forty-seven.
They had not yet reached the substantive arguments.
They had established: the Accords' democratic legitimacy was qualified. Their enforcement mechanism was an underwater prison with no due process. Their primary architect was also their primary enforcement officer.
She thought: we haven't even gotten to Siberia yet.
She thought: we haven't gotten to Ultron.
She thought: we haven't gotten to Zemo.
She looked at the gallery.
She thought: they have no idea what's coming.
She looked at Matt Murdock.
He was sitting with his hands flat on the table.
He tilted his head very slightly in her direction.
She understood — somehow, in the way that you understood things about people who were paying very close attention — that he knew she was looking at him.
She looked back at her notes.
Movement Two, she wrote. The Accords. Then Siberia. Then Ultron. Then Zemo.
She wrote, underneath that:
Then the conversation I'm not looking forward to.
She underlined it.
She did not underline it twice.
Dr. Osei called the lunch recess at twelve-fifty-three.
She called it not because she was hungry but because Philippe had passed her a note that said, in his careful clerk's handwriting: The pro-Tony section of the gallery is constructing what appears to be a rebuttal document using a tablet and a portable printer. The pro-Barnes section of the gallery has noticed. The situation is developing.
She called the recess.
She drank her coffee.
She thought about the afternoon.
She thought about Siberia.
She thought about what it was going to be like when Matt Murdock entered the Shuri report into substantive evidence and walked through it line by line.
She thought about Jennifer Walters' face when that happened.
She thought about the gallery.
She thought about Zemo, who was scheduled for tomorrow and who had sent a written statement in advance that she had read twice and that had been — she searched for the precise word — clarifying. In the way that things were clarifying when they confirmed something you had suspected but hadn't wanted to look at directly.
She thought about what accountability actually meant.
Not punishment. Not exoneration. Not the verdict that made one side of the gallery happy.
The thing underneath that.
The thing that required looking at the whole record. The whole person. The whole catastrophic, heroic, avoidable, unavoidable mess of it.
She finished her coffee.
She straightened her papers.
She went back to work.
Due Process Movement One: Preliminary Proceedings — end
Movement Two: The Accords — to follow