february 2019

TONY SHOULD HAVE expected this. 

As he flew through the skies to meet the approaching mob, he felt the blasters on his hands surge with power, erupting on contact when he landed among them. The power in his suit coursed through his body and ravaged the people immediately surrounding him. They flew outwards, hit by the blast and catapulted into the nearby snowbanks, landing hard. Tony knew they would not rise again for some time, if at all. 

Beside him, Rhodey shot bullets into the crowd with his machine gun that was positioned over his shoulder, aiming and firing at any and every breathing body. If Tony hadn't killed anyone yet, Rhodey was.

For a fleeting second, Tony wondered if these were even the right people to be fighting. They hadn't shouted anything out at them, or made their name known. But FRIDAY focused in on the badge of one man's jacket. It was a three-headed dog, its body contorted in a menacing stance. Cerberus.

With a resounding punch in the face, Tony brought another soldier down. He gritted his teeth, hearing FRIDAY's suggested attacks in his ear. "She'd better be here," he growled as he rocketed up in the sky, dodging the bullets that followed him. 

FRIDAY's response was immediate. "I've been looking for a heat signature, any record of her presence, boss."

"And?" Tony asked, seeing the Swedish military charge their enemy. 

The AI's voice was clear. "Nothing yet."

He sighed, trying to ignore the doubt that grew in his gut. He couldn't afford to lose hope now, or it would get him killed. "Keep looking," he ordered, and launched himself back into the fight below. 

Rhodey was just below him, finally standing on the ground and mowing down Cerberus' soldiers with his guns and blasters. For awhile, no one could touch him. With Tony's paranoia, he'd made sure to add in a feature to Rhodey's suit that would allow him to sense danger behind him. He'd never get surprised by his enemy. 

Since Rhodey covered the ground with the overwhelming crowd of Swedish military, Tony stayed in the sky, surveying the damage. He dove down close to blast some of them, thirty or forty at a time. He was focused, not allowing himself to become distracted. He never took his eyes off his enemies, who were still growing in numbers, as if they were coming right out of the snow. 

There hadn't been a building in sight when they'd landed. Tony had first thought that the coordinates were wrong, but he'd shaken his head, refusing to doubt Cade's judgement. He'd been trapped in there, working for them. There was no time away from Cerberus that would make him forget the things he'd seen and learned. His coordinates were correct. But there wasn't a building, there was nothing above-ground that they could see. 

Above-ground, he pondered, dodging the punch of a naive Cerberus agent that thought he could be taken down with a simple closed fist. Nothing above-ground, but what's underground?

That one thought, just for a second, cost him. Tony was too busy thinking of the possible locations of this compound, this prison that Jack could be kept in, that he didn't see the arrow flying toward him from his left. Thanks to his bullet-proof armor, the arrowhead didn't reach his skin. 

A cold sensation spread throughout his body, starting at the spot on his torso that the arrow had lodged itself. "What the hell is this?" He grumbled, looking down at it for a second. "The middle ages?" Resting a hand on the arrow, he squeezed his fist and yanked it out of his side, staring at it. 

The arrow's neck was smooth silver, and one glance at it through the eyes of his suit told him that while the neck was made of a metal composite, the arrowhead was pure vibranium. The strongest metal on earth, and, in the wrong hands, the most lethal. Tony grimaced at the sight of his enemy's weapon of choice. Whoever had fired it had more.

He realized with a sinking feeling that hurting the suit, hurting him, or even killing him, hadn't been the purpose of that arrow. FRIDAY told him enough. "Sir, the suit's punctured."

"No shit, FRIDAY," Tony growled, tossing the arrow into the snow and leaping off the ground to soar into the sky. The fighting continued below him, the Swedish army taking on the soldiers of Cerberus. "Fill in the hole. We've done this before."

"There's something wrong with the arrow," FRIDAY continued, and since Tony was above the fight with no looming obstacle in his way, he had no choice but to listen. "It's made of vibranium, yes, but there's something else. Something my services cannot detect. It's an old substance, something from long ago. It may be from Miss Kingston's early days in Hydra, something they used in the sixteenth century."

Tony spotted Rhodey, who had fallen into a rhythm of fighting, darting back and forth between the ground and the sky, doing his best to keep himself from becoming a sitting duck. "Don't give me a whole history lesson," he snapped, feeling the cool sensation become colder still. "Tell me something useful." 

With a glance, he could see the fibers of his suit stretching from one side of the hole to the other, trying to mend the damage done by Cerberus's archer. Usually this process only took a few seconds, as Tony's suit was rarely incapacitated by his enemy, if ever. But his dread grew as he saw the hole remain, closing slower than before like it was tired, like it was fighting against something inside itself to complete the usually simple task. 

"The processes of the suit are being tampered with," FRIDAY said, her voice becoming panicked. "It's something in the arrowhead. It's slowing down the healing process of the suit, therefore slowing down you."

Tony tried not to seem worried, but in reality, he was more than just a little concerned. Even though there was no one to hear him, he remarked, "Well, add that to the list of updates I need to make on the next one." It was to convince him more than anyone else. To keep up the facade of complete confidence that either saved him or got him in trouble. 

As he waited impatiently for the hole to fill, feeling the power drain from his suit, Tony searched the crowd for the Cerberus agent who'd fired the arrow at him. All he could see was bodies strewn across the snow, red blood speckling the stark white ground. Both Cerberus and Swedish military alike had lost soldiers. Tony could only hope that the body count was higher for the terrorist organization that they were trying to defeat. 

There. At the back of the crowd, there was one person standing still. More soldiers emerged from the blurry landscape to join the fight, but this one person stood completely still, just staring up at Tony, as if they could see right into his eyes. Something in his mind told him not to doubt that possibility. 

Not caring if the archer saw him coming, Tony dove right for them, picking up speed and forcing the tampered power into his fists as he soared towards the ground in pursuit of his attacker. He watched as they notched another arrow in their large bow, letting it fly. 

He didn't think it would have mattered if he'd been able to dodge it; the archer had perfect aim. Or rather, the arrow had a target that it would never miss, locked in on him. The arrow struck home with a definitive crunch in the arm of his suit. Tony felt the same dip in his power, as the mystery substance in the arrow sucked his suit dry. 

Despite the arrow sticking out of his arm, Tony stayed the course, using his fists to blast the archer as he landed in the snow. With a sickening feeling, Tony watched as the blast that was supposed to kill him, only ebbed from his suit, the power hitting the archer weakly in the legs. It would sting, but due to the weakened power in his suit, Tony had hardly hurt the archer. 

In the snow, he could see that he was a dark-haired man with sharp and angular features, his jawline strong in a way that made Tony feel like he was looking at a reflection of himself. The archer had his quiver of arrows slung on his back with his long bow in hand. It was a long, opaque black bow, darker than anything Tony had ever seen before. He'd seen many bows before, but this one was more menacing that any of Clint Barton's. 

Maybe it was because it was being used against him, to weaken him of his power. 

Either way, Tony couldn't ignore the way that he froze in his tracks, gulping at the sight of pure evil in the archer's eyes. 

"You thought you could defeat me?" The stranger bellowed, his voice loud despite the battles being fought around them. "I am your doom. I will be the one to rid the world of its precious Avengers."

Tony didn't much like villainous speeches, they made him squirm. "Too late," he quipped, "Steve Rogers already did that." Even as he said it, he couldn't help but think, I did, too.

The archer didn't care for Tony's sarcasm. "You think you can defeat the successor of Hydra? The sons of the most powerful man in the world?" 

"Funny," Tony said, stalking towards the archer, a plan forming in his mind. "I don't have any kids." He was close to the archer now, towering over him despite his weakened power. He raised a hand and latched it onto the man's neck, holding him in place as he lifted him off the ground. 

Typically, when Tony did this, it was to instill fear in his victim's heart and see their eyes widen in shock at his most lethal movements. But this time was different. There was no furious flailing of legs from the archer, nor did his eyes go wide as saucers, begging for mercy. 

He merely smirked, so large that his teeth shone, glinting off the snow. When he spoke, his words were a bit strained, but that did nothing to deter the malice in them. "Two can play at this game, Stark." He reached behind him, grabbing two arrows in his hands and thrusting them upwards, releasing them from the quiver.

Tony squeezed harder, trying to call upon the extra strength his suit gave him. There was hardly any left, leaving just his human strength to finish the job. But no matter how hard he squeezed on the stranger's neck, his smirk just got wider. It was like he'd planned this all along, luring Tony in and now he had him, right where he wanted him. 

"Tell Dean Thompson his son says hello," he grunted, driving his hands down into Tony's neck, the arrows piercing his armor again. Holding them there, the leader of Cerberus watched as the power drained from Tony's suit, leaving it virtually useless. "Tell him I completed the mission for him, when you get there. To hell."

Even in the midst of feeling his strength diminish, Tony rolled his eyes. "I find your villain complex to be unbearably annoying," he sneered, dropping Thompson to the ground and reaching up to yank the arrows out of his neck. He was still physically fine, but Thompson had done what he'd planned. He'd leveled the playing ground, confining him to the ground. 

FRIDAY confirmed what he already suspected. "Power is decreasing, boss. I can't stop it, it's just going down, like a leaking faucet—"

"It's okay," he muttered, though he'd never felt more vulnerable. "I'm not finished yet."

Thompson was on the ground, his hand massaging his sore neck and coughing furiously, trying to recover from Tony almost choking him out. "No, you're not," he chuckled lowly. "You can't possibly think that it's over. I was only the beginning. Your friend is deliciously occupied, which means I've got an opening." He stood up, although on shaky feet. Tony didn't know how this guy was so resilient. "I've got a present for you, Stark," he said with a certain malicious glint in his eyes. 

Thompson stepped aside and waved a hand at something behind him. For a moment, Tony couldn't see anything, just the white landscape covered in snow. But then, he saw it: a singular figure, stalking toward him. Their arms swung by their side, but one of them was considerably longer than the other, almost like they were holding something. 

He squinted into the distance, trying to see who approached him. "FRIDAY, who is that?" He asked.

"I can't see, boss," came her worried reply. "I can't see. It's the arrows, they're restricting my vision."

Tony was on his own, and a new, recharged enemy was on their way. 

But then his vision cleared, and the figure stepped close enough to him that Tony could begin to see a familiar shape. A familiar strut that he'd spent hours studying, wondering how he could be so intrigued by the way someone walked. 

He could see brown hair whip in the wind, neglected to be tied back. His stomach tied itself into knots, and he watched as the stalked closer to him, her familiar features stretched into something foreign, something that wasn't her. It was the same empty stare that had haunted him for the first several months since meeting her, living with a trained killer in the Tower. Slowly, he'd broken down that barrier, seeing her soft eyes come through, but the woman he stared at now, the woman who held her shoulders back and fists clenched, this was not the woman he'd known, the woman he trusted.

This was not Jack, this was the Asset.

Tony swallowed roughly, finally feeling unbearably vulnerable in his dead weight of a suit. He glanced at Thompson, who only smiled cruelly, standing away from the danger so as to be an observer. A witness to Tony's death. 

As she came closer, he realized why her right arm had seemed much longer than the left. It was a twelve-inch dagger, clutched tightly in her hand, ready to be used against anyone or anything that got in her way. He recognized it with a tug at his insides to be the same dagger he'd found in her bedroom, the same dagger she'd been given to kill him with.

Now, staring at the Asset as she came within twenty feet of him, it seemed she would finally complete her mission. 

"Jack," Tony said, willing his voice to hold weight, though it shook with uncertainty. "Jack. Look at me."

She didn't reply though. She only looked at him with her dead, empty, soulless eyes that were not hers. 

He knew he shouldn't have, but he let her get close to him, standing mere feet from him. He should have thought of a counterattack, but he couldn't think of anything. He couldn't think straight when he was looking at her, looking at the empty shell of the woman he'd trusted with his life, the woman he trusted with his heart. 

He could hardly bear to look at her, knowing that she wasn't herself. Knowing that he wasn't looking at the woman she truly was, the woman he cared for.

The woman he loved.

Tony called her name again. "Jack—"

The Asset swung her right hand up in a wide arc, aiming for the face of his Iron Man mask. It dug into the metal, carving it off of his face and breaking the fibers that kept it sewn together. 

His face exposed, Tony lifted his hands to protect himself. His breathing sped up, closing his eyes to ready himself. He didn't want to, he'd prayed to whatever god there was that he wouldn't have to. But he was out of options. He had to fight her, he had to fight the Asset and search for Jacqueline underneath the deadly exterior. 

He had to fight off one ghost, and search for another. 

"Jack," he grunted as he defended himself against her lethal, precise attacks. "Your name is Jack."

"I am no one," she snarled in response, her voice void of emotion. She emphasized it with every swipe and stab of her dagger at his suit. "I—am—no one."

It nearly tore Tony's heart out. You are someone, he wanted to scream, though he knew it would only distract him from the task at hand. You are someone to me.

||

listen,, i don't know how that ending of the chapter is because i kept changing the timeline of the last five chapters as i was writing this, so...anyway. i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, and let me know if you're confused about anything?

also, i didn't completely hate this chapter! go me!

alright, see you tomorrow for the next one, we're almost done!

june 24, 2020