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Clash of the Titans
When it comes to Karma, there are three facts that everyone knows about her.
- She is a complete bitch and derives an unhealthy, sick amount of enjoyment from that fact.
- She is ruthless. Very rarely is the retaliation equal to the original harm done, and it is never less.
- For a ruthless bitch, she is astonishingly shy. Few people ever get to witness her in action and, as such, are denied the pleasure/satisfaction/vindication of seeing their enemy’s comeuppance at the time.
All of these facts are absolutely, totally, completely true.
What most people don’t know — which is a good thing, as the knowledge would make them froth with rage and possibly start a riot — is that Karma does actually have a few Favorites. They are extremely rare, yes, with one coming along perhaps every four generations, and all of them have suffered more than their fair share of betrayal, heartache, and really bad luck.
It will therefore shock nobody with the possible exception of Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, the late and unlamented Obadiah Stane, and Justin Hammer, to know that Tony Stark is one of her Top Favorites.
It might startle a few people if they learned that the initial reason for Karma’s deep appreciation for and slight obsession with Tony was a direct result of her sister, Fate, who had finally crossed the line into ‘unforgivable’ when she stole the entire box of apology chocolates that Karma’s date for the 100,000th Starlight Gala had given her . . . after stealing 3,217 of her actual gala dates.
You see, Fate despised Tony Stark for reasons that she alone knew, so she made it a point to make his life as miserable as possible while still ensuring he had better than even chances of accomplishing whatever task she’d foisted on him. Of course, those better odds were just barely on the positive side of ‘maybe’ (as in, a 50.0000001% chance), but still: she gave him a greater chance to succeed than fail while punishing him for being as close to The Perfect Man for her that it was possible to get without actually, you know, being a celestial being/instrument of Eternity/immortal/some combination thereof.
Which, naturally, made him utterly unavailable to or for her, and since she was rather spoiled, this did not go over well. And since Karma had no trouble ever finding a date for anything, while Fate couldn’t find a decent man on the Angelic Dating site, and don’t bring up Plenty of Stars, well, she decided to make her sister’s life just as difficult as she did Tony’s, to the unending annoyance of everyone involved.
What Fate hadn’t taken into account was the fact that Tony Stark is A GENIUS. It didn’t take long for him to realize that Fate had taken an unnatural, not to mention unhealthy and destructive, interest in his life. But he also learned, whether it be from his own mistakes, life experience, or general observation, and thus rarely made the same mistake twice. He’d also long since learned that he rarely got to keep nice things. So by the time Steve Rogers and the rest of the Avengers were shoehorned into his life, he was primed and ready for something to blow up.
It was inevitable. Given the choice between the sun rising in the east and the Avengers destroying something just because it was in their way and/or looked impressive (they thought), he put his money on the destruction.
And won.
Every. Single. Time.
Thus, when first the team and then Rogers in particular betrayed him, he wasn’t remotely surprised. The betrayal itself caught him off-guard, absolutely, but Rogers’ role in it?
That was just his standard Monday.
Now, to be fair, nobody could have predicted James ‘Bucky’ Barnes. Add Tony’s more than justified need to destroy Steve Rogers’ face, though it was unfortunately tempered by his somewhat naïve desire for justice for the myriad of other victims that had to be out there, and the end result was two supersoldiers — one with a seriously fucked up brain and the other with no honor, no morals, and zero scruples — beating him half to death for the crime of being upset that the fucked-up brain had murdered his parents and the honor-less, moral-less, scruple-less man who was supposed to be a team member had lied to Tony’s face for years, stolen from him, and judged him for keeping secrets.
Beyond the haze of grief, rage, bewilderment, and pure, raw hurt, Tony knew that this was Fate. She was mad about something he had — or hadn’t, and there was no telling which one it was — done and decided he needed to be stabbed in the heart for this transgression.
Literally.
While Tony was healing from this latest assault, the Rogue Avengers skulked off to Wakanda and honestly thought that nobody knew where they were.
Carrying weapons and equipment made by Tony Stark.
Also, the Queen Mother had contacted the UN and the Accords Council an hour after they arrived and after what Tony later heard were some seriously awesome negotiations, it was agreed that Wakanda would house the group for the time being. That way, they’d be contained and not causing any more damage, destruction, deaths, or just general mayhem, while believing themselves to be safe and untouchable and international forces started the brand-new, somewhat tedious process of figuring out trials and punishment and how they would work under the umbrella of the Accords.
It took a while.
Like, a stupid amount of time. More than one tree grew from a sapling to a teenager waiting for the UN to get its act together.
Tony was still on half-days and a strictly enforced work/life balance and Rhodes was using the fourth iteration of his new braces to relearn how to walk while Stephen Strange and his cohorts worked out the final details of the spinal surgery needed so he could use his legs normally again. Peter had been placed into Pepper’s tender, merciless care while Tony healed. She mentored him in the fine arts of establishing oneself as a superhero and if he got a thorough grounding in the basics of learning the ins and outs of a Fortune 500 business, well, she didn’t have to be Tony Stark to recognize Peter’s genius and abilities.
More than that, she understood both his restlessness and his aimlessness. His uncle’s death had torn something inside Peter apart, something fundamental, and he didn’t have the first clue how to start stitching himself back together.
Pepper did.
Plus, she had a wedding to plan and Peter had an uncanny knack for working things out while keeping them small, which was what she and Tony both wanted, but still keeping them . . . expressive. Occasionally, he even managed to pull off ‘small and grandiose’.
This wedding was going down in the history books for a hell of a lot more reasons than the obvious.
And so it came to pass that when the Rogue Avengers decided to abandon Wakanda (and stealing a royal stealth jet, weapons, clothes, and food in the process, because none of them had any of that on a personal level) to go resolve a hostage situation involving Shiite and Sunni muslims (broadcast live because both side wanted the international attention, and for the same reason), Tony was safely ensconced in his onsite, private hospital and undergoing a four-hour battery of tests under Helen Cho’s watchful, gimlet eye and Stephen Strange’s biting, yet still relevant, sarcasm. Pepper and Peter were with him, the former teaching the latter how to write a press release, and Rhodes was cursing his PT with pitted edema of the dick.
(this was somewhat counterproductive, since said PT was a black woman so short her head barely topped the center of Rhodes’ chest. She was so feisty that he was dying to ask her out but terrified of the prospect, since she’d made two generals, another colonel, and a first lieutenant cry during the seven weeks she’d been working with him.
He’d seen the colonel break down. It had not been pretty.
He knew about the others because she kept a chart on her office wall. The stickers were color-coded.
Flames. They were color-coded flames.
Pepper was already planning the wedding)
In plain English, the Rogue Avengers were operating completely and totally of their own accord. Going rogue, as it were. No mission parameters, no backup, no resources. No orders from any kind of higher up, and said higher ups had no knowledge of what they were planning.
It was just them.
Blundering blindly into a hostage situation involving weapons, bombs, money, people, international attention, and two of the most volatile religious groups that have ever existed and who hate each other with a passion unmatched by anything that could possibly be imagined.
It took twelve minutes.
Watching on the news with his family later that day, Tony could only shake his head when Wilson accidentally dropped Rogers from what had to be thirty feet onto the roof of the building across from the one they needed. He clearly wasn’t expecting it and landed badly; Tony bit back a laugh at the disgruntled look he shot Wilson while gingerly testing his knee, wondered for a second where Barnes was, then turned his attention to the other clowns. Romanova and Barton simply climbed the stairs at the back, with Lang probably riding along somewhere, and Maximoff calmly floated herself up there.
In a strange coincidence, it was the same building that the task force, comprised of local and international agents, hostage negotiators, and bomb diffusion experts, had set up their command post.
Watching the group realize they were in the wrong place was hilarious, especially since they had a short but furious round of ‘not my fault!’ before they went back the way they came, scuttled around to the correct building, and, after a hasty confab lasting maybe a minute, settled on a plan that apparently consisted of Rogers’ go-to strategy of ‘charge through the front door’.
Which they did.
They also blatantly ignored the alarmed shouts of the task force who’d been called to handle things and Maximoff ensured no bullets touched any of them — but, oddly, killed or hurt none of them.
Maybe she didn’t have time?
Rogers, still limping from his earlier fall and wielding a new shield that had been painted by someone who didn’t understand the difference between ‘oil paint’ and ‘metal paint’ and thus, looked like a first-grader’s art project, burst through the suspiciously-not-secured door and declared in a voice ringing with sincerity that everything was okay, the Avengers were there to rescue everyone, brandishing his shield like that would actually do anything. While everyone was gaping at him, the rest of his team came in and confidently arrayed themselves in a pattern that was supposed to guard his back but in actuality, blocked their escape route.
The look on the faces of both the hostages and their captors was priceless, but nothing would ever beat Rogers’ expression when a man wearing red-accented black spat ‘Infidel!’ in Arabic, raised a rocket launcher, and fired it straight into his chest. He raised his arm in instinctive defense, only to gawp again when the rocket disintegrated his ‘pure vibranium’ shield like it was tissue paper. He landed hard against the wall, blood and bone and badly-painted metal fragments flying everywhere, while someone else hit Maximoff with a grenade launcher — and, possibly by mistake but maybe it was Karma — took out the rest of them in the resultant explosion.
Which also killed nine hostages and three of their captors.
To be brutally honest, that shocked everyone with an eye for detail, because those people did not miss HammerTech’s logo on the casing, so they were understandably astounded when both weapons not only fired like they were supposed to, they also exploded when and how they were intended.
It was a lot to take in, okay?
And Tony, when he saw it, could not stop the part of his mind that was The Premiere Weapons Designer in the World™ from picturing what would have happened had he or Rhodey been there.
Their missiles would have stopped Hammer’s (bewilderingly effective and seriously, WHAT?!) junk mid-spin, which in turn would have given Romanova and Barton time to deploy their short-range weapons and let Lang get into position, though it wouldn’t have actually been necessary. Both he and Rhodey would have done remote recon and known exactly how many people were there, the number and identity of heavy weapons like launchers and bombs and — was that man waving a frikkin’ Scottish broadsword?!
Yes. Yes, he was. And he didn’t have a clue how to use it, which automatically made him the most dangerous man in the room.
Well, regardless, had Iron Man or War Machine been present, things wouldn’t have . . . detonated . . . the way they did.
Not that Rogers would have listened to Tony, of course, which meant that Wilson would have ignored him as well, and Maximoff would do the exact opposite just to prove that she was, in fact, the kid Rogers so (too) often called her, but Barton and Romanova likely would have. Well, maybe. But even if they didn’t, Tony had more than enough experience and also possessed the ability to multitask, so he could have handled the bulk of that first attack.
But he wasn’t there, because the Rogue Avengers had betrayed him, the country that housed and fed and protected them, and the entire fucking world in their arrogant hubris — and they still thought they knew better than anyone else.
The fallout was spectacular.
Gruesome, but spectacular.
(Karma was not happy with Fate. And when sisters really, truly fight and mean it, things get ugly. Titans clashing, as it were)
Rogers was clearly down for the foreseeable future: his chest was a crushed, bloody mess and his left leg had been brutally broken somewhere between being hit with a miniature rocket and slamming into a solid concrete barrier. However, he was still conscious and his disbelief at seeing another team, one who was trained and skilled and had, you know, A PLAN, arrest people and give medical aid and clean up the mess he’d made was so very satisfying — particularly when he clearly couldn’t stand being on the sidelines any longer and lunged to his feet so he could muscle his way in and take over.
Tony would give him this: he was determined. Granted, that determination only got him eight, maybe nine inches off the ground before he crumpled like a badly-injured, moronic supersoldier, but still: he got further than Tony had when he’d tried and failed in Siberia.
The crowning point was seeing his affronted dignity when absolutely nobody in the building paid him one ounce of attention. He was ignored until they were ready to go, at which point his injuries were rather desultorily checked, confirmed not to be fatal or in immediate danger of such, and covered just as haphazardly by a mostly-white towel before he was moved kinda-sorta-but-not-really carefully to a stretcher, cuffed to it, and hauled off.
(the absolutely delightful irony about this wouldn’t be discovered for about four hours, but it was so deliciously perfect that even Fate had to concede the point)
Maximoff was dead and not a single person (there, watching on a screen, dead, alive, and not born yet) felt anything but relief on seeing it. Barton, who’d been aiming his bow, couldn’t react quickly enough and been impaled in the upper thigh by the intact arrow (like Tony Stark would design something that could be taken out by a weapon as plebian as a grenade launcher) and to make sure he suffered, Karma had intervened directly so that Romanova had landed on top of him with her pointy elbow jabbing straight into his throat. It was immensely entertaining to watch him choke while trying desperately not to move or throw her off him, lest he jostle that arrow and bleed to death from a punctured femoral artery.
The Black Widow’s bodysuit was dented and scratched but otherwise fine (“Nice work on the armor, Boss,” Happy murmured appreciatively. He’d wandered in shortly before Rogers fell on the wrong building, which would never not be funny), but her face? Not so much. It was an ugly mess of blood and gore and Tony was pretty sure her left eye was gone.
Peter’s face scrunched up in disgust at the sight and Pepper responded instantly by snagging his attention to her deliberately awful choice of Raschel-knit lace tablecloths for the formal reception. His horror at the very thought made Tony’s reaction look positively tepid.
(even Rhodes cringed at the thought and his knowledge of lace could be summed up with ‘stupidly delicate’. Or ‘delicately stupid’. Either way, ‘lace’ and ‘Tony Stark’s wedding’ did not compute)
Lang hadn’t yet emerged, which likely saved his life, but the concussive blast spun Wilson around like a top and actually created enough force to overwhelm even Tony Stark’s skills and bent the Falcon wings enough to drop him from the sky. Since he was almost vertically upside down, he landed directly on his head. It was a miracle his neck didn’t snap, but he hadn’t been more than about six feet off the ground by then. It was still a gory, ugly mess and even Happy looked queasy at the sight, but that took the Rogues out of commission.
Once the morons — sorry, the Rogues — were all the way down and out, the original mission went pretty much to plan: the informed, trained, and prepared task force used the distraction to enter from two other entrances and took everyone by surprise. Scottish Broadsword was swiftly disarmed, as were the Launcher Brothers, and the three people who tried suicide rushes got their wish. Otherwise, there wasn’t a single death and few injuries. And the building was upright and partially intact, though it would be several months before it was usable.
It took twelve minutes.
For his part, Tony wasn’t contacted at all since a) the entire world knew he hated the Rogue Avengers and wouldn’t spit on them if they were on fire and b) he wasn’t remotely involved because — get this — he hadn’t been asked, so he hadn’t gone.
Well. Except for that one teeny, tiny part two days later. Other than that, he was the physical embodiment of the Three Blind Mice: he’d seen nothing, he’d heard nothing, and he knew nothing.
So when he got a copy of Rogers’ interrogation a week later, it was something of a surprise.
Getting the copy, that is. The actual interrogation could not be called a surprise under any definition of the word. Tony knew this because Peter and JARVIS checked the definition in every known language on the planet, and included a few dead ones just to be thorough.
He barely made it three minutes in before he had JARVIS order the entire menu from his favorite pizza place, drinks included, and also the entire inventory of popcorn (all of it) from the nearest Costco, to be delivered as soon as humanly possible. While that was happening, he group-texted Pepper, Rhodey, Peter, and Happy, because this drivel needed an audience.
Also, it had been a while since they’d had an actual pizza party, complete with bad comedy, good comedy, and Top Gun, assuming Pepper could talk Happy into it.
In short order, everything and everyone was in place and JARVIS started the recording.
Eighty-four seconds in, after Rogers completely missed the not-remotely-subtle implications behind ‘restrained for your and our physical safety’, Peter proposed a drinking game every time Rogers said ‘Barnes’. It was regretfully but immediately vetoed by everyone else because, as Pepper tartly put it, “Nobody here is risking alcohol poisoning again and if you think I’m getting up every three minutes to pee because I’ve just chugged another gallon of water, you’re crazy, Peter.”
The young man could not refute this, so he sighed and was allowed to look woebegone for ten seconds before JARVIS resumed things.
Two seconds later, the sound of water hitting something that wasn’t wood or cloth came to their ears, followed by a man spluttering and also still trying to talk.
“Mr Rogers! Enough!” the interrogator snapped, sounding exasperated beyond all endurance. “We don’t have Barnes. We don’t want Barnes. In point of fact, nobody gives a damn about Barnes. I am here because the governments of Indonesia and Iran want to know what the hell you and your team thought you were doing by blundering into that hostage situation.”
There was a long moment of silence and it sounded so bewildered, everyone cringed. Then, finally—
“We were there to rescue everybody, because the Avengers are there to protect the people,” Rogers said. As always, he sounded totally sure of himself and despite the long months spent physically and mentally healing, Tony still flinched when he heard it. Pepper instantly tucked her head into his shoulder and pressed a kiss to his throat while the other three men glowered impotently at the invisible Rogers. They knew it had to be this way for justice to be served, but it wasn’t fair that Tony was forever denied the chance to just punch Rogers straight in his lying, sanctimonious mouth at least once.
Because it was something they both deserved.
(Karma caught that thought, tasted the protective, vengeance-soaked desire fueling it, and made the executive decision to make it happen, and not just because she was fond of Tony Stark. Like most women, she deeply appreciated loyalty and the fact that three very different men had expressed the same wish for the same person resonated deeply within her)
“You were there to rescue everyone,” the interrogator repeated, voice dry as a desert. “Then you failed miserably, because you didn’t get a single person out of that situation. In fact, you got two of your own people killed and thirteen and counting of the others — the ones you were illegally there to ‘rescue’. And that isn’t including the injured. By arrogantly blundering in without permission, knowledge, or the common sense God gave a broken rock, you murdered at least fifteen people! Explain yourself!”
Disgust was clear in the furious demand.
And then—
And then.
“I’m sorry people were hurt. But more people would have died if we hadn’t been there. An—”
“Shut. Up.”
To everyone’s shock, Rogers obeyed and there was an eternity, or maybe just two minutes, of a silence so full of death that even Tony was twitchy.
“You are personally and directly responsible for the unnecessary, pointless, avoidable deaths of at least fifteen people as well as the partial destruction of that factory, which is the town’s primary source of income, and you have the nerve to tell us — to tell the world — that you are the hero? The man who got his own team members killed, not that the witch is any loss at all, but your archer bled to death from his own arrow severing his femoral artery when the medics tried to get him on a stretcher. So that’s two needless deaths that are solely on you, right there, and you FAILED to rescue or even help a single person. You invaded Indonesia. You destroyed the operation already in place, which would likely have resulted in zero hostage and few, if any, enemy casualties — but you think you did the right thing. That you’re ‘the hero’.”
. . . silence.
“Yes,” Rogers confirmed — and it WAS a confirmation. The interrogator actually screamed in sheer frustration, though it was muffled enough that a pillow had likely been involved, since whatever the blond behemoth was about to say next was also muffled into silence.
“This interview is over,” the furious questioner declared, voice tight with fury and what sounded a great deal like satisfaction. “You have nothing useful or intelligent to say to support your actions and I still have your remaining . . . team members (‘moronic sycophants’ was so clearly what was intended to fill that gap that even Pepper winced. It was miniscule, microscopic even, but she winced) . . . to interview before I can go home and cry. Before I do, however, there is one final thing that, as a fully licensed surgeon as well as a professional interrogator, it is my sincere pleasure to explain to you: your current, ongoing, and permanent medical situation so you understand where you truly stand.”
Tony grinned like Jack Nicholson in The Shining when he heard it, because he had a pretty good idea what was coming next. Being sworn to silence until the official announcement was made had sucked, but the knowledge had still made his entire decade. His deranged joy got everyone else’s attention and in freaky sync, they turned to stare at him. His toothy, hatefully-satisfied smile widened even further but he said nothing.
This time, he didn’t need to.
But damn: when Karma was really, truly on your side, she was fucking incredible!
(beyond eternity, Karma preened and spritzed herself with Motor Oil: The Deluxe Edition. (Now with a dash of exhaust fumes!))
“I—I don’t—” Rogers began, obviously befuddled.
“No, you don’t,” the interrogator ruthlessly cut him off as the sound of rustling papers filled the room for few seconds. “So here’s what happened. When you were taken out by a HammerTech rocket launcher, you ended up with a great deal of shrapnel in your chest cavity, both from the weapon and from the destruction of the shield. However, due to your rapid healing, nobody realized that until a few hours later, when your blood pressure plummeted and you started coughing up blood. Fortunately, a few of the hospital staff recognized the symptoms and emergency surgery was performed.”
A deep breath was taken, but not to allow Rogers time to respond.
It was awesome.
“However, it was quickly discovered that the shrapnel and debris cannot be removed. You heal too quickly for standard surgery and there isn’t a way to slow that process. In fact, the Extremis perfected by Doctor Stark accelerated your healing to an astonishing degree, which clearly rendered that option moot. Doctor Helen Cho, who created the Cradle, was also consulted, but the same problem prohibits that possibility, and it also prevents you from being fitted with an arc reactor, the way Tony Stark was when this happened to him in 2008 — though for the record, he flatly refused to even consider the option. But it wouldn’t work anyway because you heal so quickly and so thoroughly, plus the fact that your body tissues, muscles, and bones are thicker and stronger than the average human by a factor of three, that fitting you with such a device where it must be placed would result in it being completely sealed away and unable to exert enough magnetic force to hold the shell fragments and debris in place. You would be dead in two weeks at most, and you would suffer excruciating pain the entire time. Due to a complete lack of any removal options, the shrapnel is now a permanent part of your body.”
This time, a lingering silence was allowed to ensue, and it was so full of malevolent satisfaction that even Happy smiled in approval.
Pepper had both hands over her mouth, but since it was to fight back laughter, nobody was worried she felt sorry for the bastard, and Peter and Rhodes just did their own personal handshake before Peter curled into Tony’s side and silently rejoiced at the complete lack of tension he felt in his father’s body.
This, then, was why he’d gone to that Accords meeting a couple of weeks ago — and why Helen had not only allowed it, but gone with him. It also explained why he’d been so tightlipped when he came back, but also much less tense.
“We were truly at a loss until Doctor Stark graciously offered a possible solution. It’s elegant, as these things go, and more than anyone else on the planet would have done for you, but he saved your life. He brought four miniature electromagnets, which were implanted in each valve of your heart, and gossamer wire was attached to and run from those magnets along your rib and arm bones down to a miniaturized car battery, which was surgically inserted between the radius and ulna of each arm and allowed to heal unobstructed in order to anchor them in place. So far, it is working exactly as it should: the electronic pulses are travelling up the wires and powering the magnets, which are in turn keeping the shrapnel relatively still. But the fragile nature of the solution, which is unavoidable and unalterable, means that you cannot exert yourself at all. No running, no jogging, no weightlifting, no sparring or fighting, no stairs . . . you will likely end up in a wheelchair in order to preserve the delicate balance that’s keeping you alive.”
The stunned silence that filled both rooms was deeply, deeply gratifying. It really was.
Pepper threw herself into Tony’s arms without giving Peter enough time to move, so he got an up-close-and-personal look at a serious ‘in about three minutes, I’m gonna fuck you against this wall’ kiss, which he found remarkably educational, all things told, while Rhodes and Happy burst out laughing and JARVIS slyly paused the recording to allow both the levity and the release of tension to abate naturally.
It didn’t take as long as could reasonably be expected, but that was mostly because Tony knew the possibility of something else . . . and since Karma had given him the chance, he badly wanted to hear if his suggestion had been taken.
“So that’s the medical result of your failed ‘rescue’,” the interrogator sneered. The intonation strongly reminded everyone of Severus Snape, by way of Alan Rickman, and all five of them shuddered. “The legal side was also Doctor Stark’s recommendation, and it was unanimously accepted in lieu of prison time, which you are now physically incapable of surviving, at the conclusion of your trial, which was held in absentia yesterday. The final guilty verdict — also unanimous, if you were wondering — was held in abeyance pending the results of this interrogation, just in case you did, in fact, have a legitimate reason for invading a country and interfering in an international operation. Since you don’t, the guilty verdict was accepted and entered into record approximately eleven minutes ago.”
Rogers’ outraged spluttering was ignored by the interrogator as easily as Rhodes did it, which earned the recording several admiring glances.
“It is therefore the decision of the newly-created United Nations Enhanced Individual Disciplinary Board that you, Steven Grant Rogers, will be shuttled on a specially-built prison aircraft to each country you have operated in illegally and offer a formal apology in a live press conference. You will start with Indonesia, as you’re already here. If you personally caused any deaths or injuries, you will list those people by name and offer a personal, direct apology to each and every one of them and their families. Because Wanda Maximoff and Clint Barton are dead, as their team leader, you will take full responsibility for their actions as well. Once the international apologies have all been appropriately given and each country has accepted them, you will be returned to the United States. You will then do the same for your actions there, starting with the lives you personally harmed when you released the data from SHIELD, unencrypted and with no warning, to the general public. Ms. Romanova will do the same despite the loss of her eye and one hand. You will read each name of the person who was hurt or killed as a direct result of that decision, and you will include the names of everyone on board the aircraft you destroyed over the Potomac along with those who were hurt or killed in the aftermath.”
Rogers was gasping for air now. Not being able to see him made it difficult to interpret the meaning of those gasps, but ‘affronted’, ‘disbelieving’, and ‘denial’ were the three frontrunners.
Not that it mattered; even if they were wrong about what he was thinking, it was done and dusted. All four trials had happened, all four had been found guilty, and Rogers’ thoughts weren’t worth a fart in the desert.
“Mr. Lang will not share your punishment, as he harmed no one outside of the true Avengers and those injuries were included in his trial offenses. Unfortunately, Mr. Wilson suffered severe brain damage during your ‘rescue’ and is no longer able to speak, write, or communicate, meaning you’ll have to speak for him as well. But then, you are Captain America. It’s only right that you take responsibility for your team’s actions as well as your own, especially since — in your own words — the safest hands are yours.”
Peter sucked in a deep breath, then hissed, “Buuuuuuuuurn.”
He wasn’t wrong and Rhodes let out a crack of laughter that almost took the small wall mirror with it, which sent Pepper off in a fit of giggles, and they mostly-missed the last few minutes, wherein Rogers was informed that once he’d apologized to everyone he and his team had ever avoidably hurt or killed, he would be sequestered in an individual prison house, where he would live out the remainder of his life. He would do nothing but think about his life choices and possibly read the occasional book if the warden was so inclined because his body was now incapable of handling any kind of physical exertion, so he couldn’t work off any of his debt or guilt, and he also lacked the skills to do computer work. There was the possibility that he would be taught such skills eventually, if only to keep him from being a total waste of resources and American taxpayer dollars, but for the time being, he would sit on his ass in a 600 square foot house with no TV, no computer, and few books.
It was absolute perfection and Tony could have cried from the beauty of it.
He didn’t.
But he could have.
It was finally over.
So it was a little jarring to hear the same interrogator channel Snape again and sneer Romanova’s name.
Her interview was much more straightforward. It was also so predictable as to be boring . . . right until the very end.
(When Karma decided she liked you, she tended to throw all restraint out the window. Of course, it often landed on and did its best to strangle her hapless cousin Kismet, but such is the way of Eternals. He made it work for him anyway)
“None of this would have happened if Stark’s equipment hadn’t quit because he was throwing a tantrum,” she declared. Even without seeing her, everyone but Peter knew she was pouting at her questioner with what she thought was a seductively-woebegone expression of longsuffering patience. “He had to keep us reliant on his badly-made garbage so we’d keep him on the team. It’s no wonder everything stopped working when it was a mission he wasn’t invited on; he couldn’t let us succeed because that would make him look bad.”
“Tony Stark knew nothing about the situation, because he wasn’t contacted,” the interrogator explained after more than three minutes of what sounded a lot like disbelieving silence. It was also clear there was concern that the explosion had rattled Romanova’s brain more than people had realized and Tony suddenly wished he could comfort the poor schmuck with the reassurance that no, this was not brain damage. It was classic, vintage Natasha Romanova. “He was not involved at all.”
“You don’t know Tony,” the Black Widow shot back contemptuously. “His ego wouldn’t let him ignore such a high-profile incident. I guarantee he hacked your servers and found all the data and info he wanted so he could screw us over.”
After another long moment or two of silence, the interrogator addressed that assertion.
“It makes no difference either way. He wasn’t asked for assistance and he offered none. Therefore, it is impossible for him to have had any effect on what happened.”
“Again, you don’t know Stark,” Romanova insisted. “The Shiites were livestreaming it, so he knew exactly what was going on. And like I said, he’s so egotistical that he can’t stand letting important things happen without his interference — and he hates us because we proved he was wrong about the Accords. He screwed with our weapons just to be petty.”
After yet another deep, contemplative silence, the interrogator found words.
“So . . . you’re saying that in the space of 249 seconds, the exact amount of time it took from you landing on the wrong building to being completely removed from the situation, Tony Stark saw you, remotely deactivated the equipment for five people, contacted Hank Pym and got him to do the same for Scott Lang . . . and not a single one of you noticed?”
This silence was icy.
It was also full of enraged embarrassment, because Romanova had been neatly backed into a corner and they both knew it.
But never let it be said that she gave up even in the face of . . . well, of anything, really. And heaven forbid she admit someone — anyone — was better than her.
Defiantly, she snapped, “Yes! Stark is clever, in his own way, and we weren’t expecting him to betray us again, though we should have. He’s a petty, selfish ass with delusions of grandeur.”
“Hmm,” the interrogator thoughtfully hummed.
And then utterly decimated Natasha Romanova’s world.
“If that’s true, you shouldn’t have betrayed him.”
“Buuuuuuuuuuuuuurn,” Happy gasped, almost falling out of his chair with laughter. JARVIS allowed the recording to play on while the one-eyed, one-handed, stunned silent (possibly for only the third time in her life) Black Widow was informed first of the permanency of her injuries, then her punishment, which was the same as Rogers’, though she would go to an actual prison afterwards. He did so because despite her massively overinflated ego and sense of importance, she had excellent control over her voice and facial expressions, so there would be no reaction for her audience to enjoy. He did, however, put a summary of said injuries and punishment on Tony’s personal tablet for later perusal.
And . . . that was it.
It was done. The Rogue Avengers had been captured, neutered, neutralized, and made irrelevant, and, after suffering the greatest humiliation two of them could actually experience, they would be someone else’s problem.
Eventually, they wouldn’t be anyone’s problem, because they were no longer capable of being problems.
It was Karma at her most exquisite best.
So after admitting his personal failures and mistakes to the entire world, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanova would vanish into obscurity. They might be used as a cautionary tale for emerging enhanced people.
And they might not.
Truly, Tony Stark could not think of a more fitting punishment for those two people. As for the other two survivors . . . sorry, who were they again?
Perfection. This was absolute, glorious, perfection. And, frankly, the best present he’d gotten since Pepper said ‘yes’.
So he blew Karma a kiss.
She blushed.
(not being stupid or unaware, Pepper followed it with an unmistakable glower.
Karma, also not being stupid or unaware, nodded and offered a respectful salute. Look but don’t touch; she could do that.
Dammit)
Fate sighed, threw her hands up, and gave up on hating Tony Stark. It was more trouble than it was worth — which, given the amount of trouble she used just to wash her hair, said something.
Plus . . . well, he was cute. And loyal. Determined. Refused to give up or be defeated. Devoted. A wonderful father. A spectacular lover. A man who respected and honored those who were worthy of his regard.
And, she belatedly discovered as he winked at her before turning his full attention to his family . . .
Tony Stark was nobody’s fool.
~~~
fin