Tony Stark slammed back into his own body with the grace of a dropped engine block. One moment, he was in a cathedral of fog. The next, he was back in Malibu. He staggered, his hand catching the edge of a mahogany workbench to steady himself, the familiar grain of the wood a bizarre anchor in a sea of disorientation.
"JARVIS," he rasped, his throat dry, the words scraping their way out. "How long was I... unresponsive?"
"Sir, you were in a catatonic state for approximately fifteen minutes," the JARVIS replied, its voice utterly incongruous with the chaos storming through Tony's mind. "I conducted a full medical scan during the episode. No physiological abnormalities were detected."
Tony let out a jagged breath, shaking his head. "Fifteen minutes. Felt like a goddamn eternity."
Then, the transformation hit him. It started as a low thrum deep in the marrow of his bones and erupted into a tidal wave of liquid fire. It is an alchemical heat that rewrote the very fiber of his being. He gritted his teeth, a low groan escaping his lips as his muscles coiled and tightened, becoming dense as spun armor plating. His bones felt as if they were being reinforced from the inside out with an unbreakable strength. His senses sharpened to a terrifying degree.
"Whoa..." Tony breathed, flexing his hand, watching the way the tendons moved beneath his skin with a lethal grace. It was like seeing the inner workings of a perfectly designed machine for the first time. "Okay. Either I'm dreaming, or the laws of biology have just packed up their shit and retired to Florida."
He pushed himself away from the bench, his body feeling both lighter and infinitely more solid. "JARVIS, scan my body again."
"Scanning…"
"Sir, this is statistically impossible," JARVIS's voice held a note of what could almost be described as digital confusion. "Your baseline muscle fiber density and bone tensile strength have increased by approximately six hundred percent."
Tony let out an incredulous laugh. He tested his weight, shifting from foot to foot. He gave an experimental hop, putting no more force into it than he would stepping over a puddle.
The reinforced workshop floor groaned and then buckled with a screech of protesting metal, a spiderwebbing indentation appearing where he landed.
He stared down at the ruined flooring. "Remind me to reinforce the flooring," he muttered, a manic grin spreading across his face. The grin faded as the cold reality of the transaction settled in. "Check my accounts."
"A single transaction of fifty-five million dollars has occurred, Sir," JARVIS reported. "The recipient account has no registration, no history, no digital footprint. I cannot identify the beneficiary."
Tony leaned against his desk, the cold reality of 'The World's' 'Stars and Cosmos' metaphor settling into his stomach like a block of ice. He looked at his hands… hands that could now punch through steel.
The memory of the girl whose voice cracked with a pain so pure it was corrosive then surfaced like a ghost.
"JARVIS," he said, his voice suddenly serious. "Run a search in Sokovia. Find a girl named Wanda."
"Searching... There are seven hundred sixteen individuals named Wanda in the region, Sir."
"Narrowing by probable age…"
"Three hundred nine results remain."
"Filtering for parents deceased in civil conflict…"
"Thirteen records remain."
"Pull live satellite and street-level imagery," Tony ordered, his voice tight. "All thirteen."
The holographic screens around him erupted with the grey devastation of the Eastern European state. Hollow eyed civilians moving like ghosts through their own shattered lives. And there, amidst the rubble, half-buried in the dirt, were the rusted shells of missiles and mortars bearing a logo he had designed himself on a napkin over a three-hundred-dollar steak.
Stark Industries
Tony closed his eyes. "I didn't know," he whispered to the empty room. "JARVIS, hack the Pentagon databases. Everything. Check weapon distribution manifests, shipping logs, end-user certificates. Cross-reference every shareholder in the international arms division."
"Sir... the security on those files is formidable," JARVIS cautioned. "And there is one name with top-level access to all international distribution channels. Should I include Obadiah Stane in the deep dive protocol?"
Tony froze. The name hit him harder than the physical transformation had. Obie. Uncle Obie. The man who had been a second father to him. The man who had held the company together when Tony was too drunk or too busy or too broken to care.
His jaw tightened until his new teeth ached. He wanted to say no. He wanted to laugh at the absurd suggestion. But the cold logic of Sefirah Castle was still whispering in the back of his mind. "I SEE THE SAME SCRIPTS PLAYED OUT BY DIFFERENT ACTORS..."
"…Yes," Tony said, the word tasting like ash. "Include him."
"Sir... are you certain?" JARVIS asked, the query almost hesitant.
"Yes," Tony snapped, his voice cracking like a whip. "Dig deep. I want to know who put my name on that girl's tombstone."
———-
T'Challa gasped awake in a Wakandan medical chamber. His sister, Shuri, stood over him, her brow furrowed in uncharacteristic worry, her usual mischievous sparkle replaced by a deep concern.
"Brother," she said, her voice sharp with relief. "You've been unresponsive for nearly fifteen minutes. The bio monitors showed nothing, but you were… gone. Are you well?"
T'Challa moved to sit up, a simple movement. The reinforced steel frame of the medical bed beneath him tore and shattered under the simple pressure of his palm, the sound a deafening shriek of tortured metal. He froze, looking at his hand, then at the ruined bed, feeling the effortless efficiency of his new muscles.
"I am... fine," he said, his voice a low rumble of astonishment. "Scan my body, Shuri."
The princess's fingers danced across the holographic panels, data streams flowing around her. Her eyes widened, then widened again until they were huge pools of disbelief.
"This is impossible," she breathed. "Your muscle and bone density have increased sixfold. The cellular regeneration rate is off the charts. This surpasses the effects of the Heart-Shaped Herb by an order of magnitude and yet your DNA remains untouched. There is no sign of Herb's mutagenic properties. What happened to you?"
"Check the royal treasury accounts," T'Challa countered, his mind racing.
Shuri's fingers flew again. "Fifty-five million US dollars transferred to an untraceable recipient," she reported, her head snapping up. "Brother, were we hacked? Is this an attack?"
"No," T'Challa replied, his gaze distant. "It was a purchase. Do not investigate further, Shuri."
———-
In a crumbling apartment in Novi Grad, Wanda Maximoff gasped, her lungs burning as she returned to the biting cold of reality. Pietro was there, his hands gripping her shoulders, his blue eyes wide with fear.
"Wanda! You were unconscious, your eyes were open but you were not here!" he said, his Sokovian accent thick with panic. "What is happening to you?"
"I'm fine," she whispered, her hands still trembling from her private conversation with The World. She looked at her brother, truly looked at him, seeing the hunger in the hollows of his cheeks, the desperation simmering behind his fierce pride. "Pietro… there is someone... who offered us work. A place to rest. Away from here."
Pietro's expression hardened, his protective instincts flaring. "We don't trust strangers, Wanda. Especially not ones who offer miracles."
"You can trust this one," she said, a strange certainty in her voice. She met his gaze, her own eyes pleading. "And Pietro... we haven't eaten in two days."
The boy looked at the cracked linoleum floor, the pride of a protective older brother warring with the gnawing desperation of a survivor. He finally let out a long sigh. "Fine. I will keep you safe."
A weak smile touched Wanda's lips. "Please," she rolled her eyes weakly. "I'm older one."
"No, I am the older one," he shot back, a flicker of their old banter returning. "By twelve minutes. The most important twelve minutes."
———
The following morning, Aryan exited his office at Umbrella, his mind already calculating profit margins, potential power upgrades, and the psychological states of his 'club members'. He was so lost in thought that he didn't register the approaching figure until they collided. Hot coffee bloomed across the front of his crisp white shirt.
"Oh… !" Sharon Carter froze, her blue eyes wide with a perfect shock. "Mr. Spencer! I am so sorry!"
"It's fine," Aryan said, his voice calm. He felt the searing heat of the liquid for a fraction of a second, but his new skin didn't even redden. The pain was a dull sensation. "I'll change."
"No… wait," she said quickly, reaching out as if to brush at the fabric, her fingers lingering for a moment too long. A subtle touch. "Let me have it cleaned for you. It's entirely my fault. I insist."
"Alright," he replied, playing his part.
"And please," she added, her expression one of earnest apology. "Would you allow me to buy you a fresh coffee? As a proper apology."
At the corporate café downstairs, she tried to peel back the layers of his identity with the surgical precision of a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent disguised as a friendly subordinate. "You don't talk much about yourself, Mr. Spencer. You're very… hard to read."
"I prefer listening," he replied, taking a slow sip of the coffee he didn't need.
"Well, I hope we can be friends," she said casually, her eyes searching for any reaction.
"Perhaps," he answered, his tone pleasantly neutral.
He saw it then. A half second where her professional smile faltered, replaced by a flash of genuine frustration. She didn't notice that he noticed. She thought her mask was perfect.