Chapter 3
The fallout from Aron's ultimatum was immediate. Obadiah Stane didn't resign; he vanished. Within forty-eight hours, the Arc Reactor prototypes at the Stark Industries' Sector 16 were stripped.
"He's building it in the old 16 facility," Tony said, his fingers flying across a holographic interface. "The energy signature is massive. It's messy, inefficient, but powerful. He's using the Mark I designs he recovered from the desert."
Aron sat on the edge of a lab table, watching the data streams. "He's not alone. Raphael is picking up encrypted bursts coming from the facility. Someone is feeding him the stabilization code he couldn't crack."
"Hydra," Bucky said, leaning against the doorframe, his suit jacket off and his metal arm exposed as he cleaned a custom sniper rifle. "They're using him as a stalking horse to test your limits, Aron."
"He thinks sound will stop me," Aron mused. "Tony, how's the Mark III?"
"Ready for a test drive. But I think we have a bigger problem. My sensors just picked up a massive gamma spike in Culver University. It's off the charts."
Aron stood up. "The Hulk. Fury mentioned a 'Project Rebirth' spin-off. If Ross is cornering Bruce Banner, the city will be leveled before Obadiah even gets his suit out of the garage."
"You take the big green guy," Tony said, the Mark III helmet slamming shut over his face with a mechanical clack. "I'll handle my disgruntled business partner."
Culver University was a war zone.
The military had pinned a massive, emerald-skinned behemoth against a library wall. General Ross stood on a humvee, screaming orders. "Fire the sonic cannons! Don't let him breathe!"
Aron landed a hundred yards away, the pavement cracking under his boots. He didn't wear armor; he didn't need it. The "Perfected Doomsday Gene" had already adjusted his skin to a dull, metallic sheen to deflect the stray high-caliber rounds whizzing through the air.
Aron walked toward the Hulk. The soldiers didn't even notice him until he was past their perimeter.
"Hey, Big Guy," Aron said, his voice cutting through the roar of the sonic cannons.
The Hulk turned, his eyes bloodshot and filled with agony. He roared, a sound that shattered the windows of the surrounding buildings. He lunged at Aron, a fist the size of a mailbox swinging with enough force to capsize a destroyer.
Aron didn't dodge. He raised a single hand and caught the fist.
The shockwave blew the hats off the soldiers fifty feet away. Aron's feet sank two inches into the concrete, but he didn't move back. He looked into the Hulk's eyes.
"Enough," Aron said.
Aron's hand began to glow. This was the next stage of his evolution: Energy Siphoning. Through the contact with the Hulk's skin, Aron began to draw the excess gamma radiation into his own cells. To anyone else, it would be lethal. To Aron, it was a snack.
The Hulk's roar died down into a confused whimper. The green hue of his skin began to fade, his massive muscles shrinking. Within seconds, a naked, shivering Bruce Banner was sitting in the crater, gasping for air.
"Who... who are you?" Banner whispered.
"A friend," Aron said. He looked up as the military humvees accelerated toward them. "And your ride out of here."
Aron picked Banner up and, with a single leap, cleared the university walls, disappearing into the tree line before General Ross could even register what had happened.
Back in Los Angeles, the sky was screaming.
The Iron Monger was a behemoth of iron and spite. It stood ten feet tall, its Gatling guns chewing up the asphalt of the freeway. Obadiah's voice boomed through external speakers. "I built this company, Tony! Everything you have belongs to me!"
Tony, in the sleek red-and-gold Mark III, was struggling. The Monger was built for raw power, and Obadiah was playing dirty, throwing cars and using the civilian crowd as shields.
"JARVIS, I need a power boost to the chest RT!" Tony shouted.
"Power at 15%, sir," the AI responded.
Suddenly, a streak of gray light slammed into the Iron Monger from above.
Aron had arrived. He landed on the Monger's shoulders, his fingers digging into the reinforced steel like it was wet clay.
"Obadiah," Aron said, his voice vibrating through the suit's cockpit. "I told you to resign."
"Get off me, you freak!" Obadiah screamed. He activated the sonic cannons.
A high-frequency pitch erupted from the suit. It was designed to liquefy a human's internal organs. Aron felt a momentary sting, a sharp ringing in his ears.
Aron didn't pull away. He hummed. The sound coming from his throat was a low-frequency rumble that perfectly cancelled out Obadiah's weapon. Then, he reached into the Monger's chest and gripped the stolen Arc Reactor.
"This doesn't belong to you," Aron said.
With a sharp jerk, he ripped the power source out. The massive suit went dark, its limbs locking up. It fell forward with a deafening crash, pinning Obadiah inside.
Tony landed beside his brother, his faceplate sliding up. He looked at the wreckage, then at Aron. "You handled Banner?"
"He's at the mansion. Bucky's making him tea," Aron said, his breathing even.
"We're going to need a lot of tea," Tony sighed, looking at the approaching news helicopters.
Aron looked up at the sky. He could feel the eyes of the world—and the eyes of those beyond it. The evolution was continuing. He felt stronger, faster, and more connected to the fundamental forces of the universe.
"The world knows we're here now, Tony," Aron said. "No more hiding."
"Good," Tony said, stepping toward the cameras. "I've never been much for hiding anyway."
The media frenzy following the freeway battle was a storm the Starks were well-prepared to weather. While the world's news cycles replayed the footage of the "Red-and-Gold Knight" and the "Silver Blur," the real work was happening beneath the surface of the Malibu mansion.
In the sub-level laboratory, Bruce Banner sat wrapped in a heavy Stark Industries blanket, clutching a mug of herbal tea with hands that still trembled slightly. Bucky Barnes stood a few paces back, his presence a silent, grounding weight.
"I don't... I don't remember much," Banner whispered, looking up as Aron entered the room. "Just the noise. And then you. You did something to me. The 'Other Guy'... he's quiet. I've never felt him this quiet."
"I siphoned the excess," Aron said, pulling up a chair. He looked remarkably normal for someone who had just dismantled a ten-ton mech. "Your condition is an energy imbalance, Bruce. Most people try to cage the Hulk. I just lowered the pressure in the tank."
"You saved my life," Banner said, a flicker of hope in his eyes. "But Ross won't stop. He thinks I'm property."
"General Ross is a man who thinks he can control the tide with a bucket," Aron replied. "He's no longer your biggest concern. Tony?"
Tony walked in, holding a tablet. "Obie's in federal custody. The board is scrambling to name me Chairman again, which I'll decline in favor of Pepper. But the interesting part is the suit. Aron, the sonic tech Obadiah used? It wasn't Stark tech. It was a refined version of an old S.H.I.E.L.D. prototype."
"Hydra," Bucky muttered.
"Exactly," Tony agreed. "They're testing the waters. They wanted to see if the 'Silver Blur'—that's what the internet is calling you, by the way, Ronnie—had a breaking point."
Aron stood up, walking toward the window that looked out over the ocean. "They're going to be disappointed. Tony, we need to move the timeline up. We don't just need armor. We need a network."
"The 'Iron Legion'?" Tony asked.
"No. Something bigger. We need to find the others. There's a man in Brooklyn who's been on ice for seventy years. There's a queen in the shadows of the Red Room. We need to build the team before the threat from above realizes the door is unlocked."
Tony paused, his playful demeanor fading. "The threat from above? You're talking about the Tesseract? The stuff Dad used to talk about?"
"I'm talking about the things that are coming for it," Aron said.
Aron's eyes sharpened. "Tony, Bucky—get Bruce to the safe room. We have a visitor who isn't on the guest list."
"Is it Fury again?" Tony asked, reaching for his gauntlet.
"No," Aron said, his body tensing as the Doomsday Gene shifted into a defensive state. "This one feels... older."
A shimmer appeared on the landing pad outside the glass. The air rippled like heat over asphalt, and a figure emerged from the nothingness. He was tall, dressed in regal greens and golds, with a cape that fluttered in a wind that wasn't there. In his hand, he held a staff that hummed with a low, blue light.
Loki, Prince of Asgard, looked at the mansion with a sneer of divine contempt.
Aron stepped through the sliding glass doors to meet him. "You're a long way from home, Loki."
Loki froze, his smirk faltering. "You know my name, mortal? Most in this primitive realm struggle to remember their own history, let alone the lore of the All-Father."
"I know a lot of things," Aron said. He walked forward, the ground humming beneath his feet. "I know you're here to scout. I know you're looking for the Tesseract. And I know you're working for someone who thinks they can conquer this world."
Loki laughed, a cold, melodic sound. "A bold tongue for a creature of dust. Do you truly think your 'evolution'—yes, I can see the rot of the beast inside you—can stand against the might of a god?"
"Gods are just aliens with better PR," Aron replied. "And you? You're just a distraction."
Loki swung his staff, a bolt of blue energy screaming toward Aron's chest. Aron didn't move. He let the energy hit him.
Aron absorbed the blast, his skin glowing with a faint blue aura for a split second before the light faded. He looked at Loki, who was now genuinely bewildered.
"My turn," Aron said.
Aron didn't use a punch. He used a Kinetic Burst. He clapped his hands together, and the resulting shockwave was so focused it shattered the invisibility cloak on Loki's hidden ship nearby, revealing a group of Chitauri scouts.
"Go back to your master," Aron commanded, his voice echoing with a power that made the Asgardian flinch. "Tell him Earth isn't a playground. It's a graveyard for anyone who tries to take it."
Loki narrowed his eyes, his form flickering as he prepared to teleport. "This isn't over, Stark. The dark is coming, and your little light will be the first to flicker out."
With a flash of light, the god and his ship vanished.
Aron stood on the pad, his chest heaving slightly. The Gene was screaming for more. It had tasted cosmic energy, and it wanted to hunt.
Tony walked out, his Mark III helmet up. "Was that... a wizard?"
"An alien," Aron corrected. "And the clock just started ticking."
"We're going to need a bigger team," Tony said, looking at the empty space where Loki had stood.
"I know just where to start," Aron said. "Bucky, get the plane ready. We're going to the Arctic."
The private Stark jet cut through the freezing winds of the Arctic Circle, its hull reinforced with the same vibranium-steel alloy Tony had used for the Mark III. Inside, the cabin was quiet, save for the hum of the engines and the rhythmic tapping of Bruce Banner's fingers against a tablet.
"The thermal scans are hitting a wall," Tony said, pointing to a flickering blue readout. "There's a localized magnetic anomaly right where the Valkyrie went down. It's like something is screaming beneath the ice."
"It's not screaming, Tony. It's waiting," Aron said. He sat near the bay door, already dressed in a lightweight thermal suit. He didn't actually need the warmth—his internal temperature was regulated by Raphael to a constant 37°C regardless of the environment—but the suit kept the 'normal' appearance for the S.H.I.E.L.D. observers he knew were watching their flight path.
"We're over the drop zone," Bucky said from the pilot's seat. His face was set in a grim mask. Finding Steve wasn't just a mission for him; it was the closing of a circle that had remained broken for seventy years. "Aron, the ice is thick. At least two hundred feet of solid permafrost."
"I'll open the door," Aron said.
He stood up and hit the manual release for the bay. The freezing Arctic air rushed in, a howling gale that would have knocked a normal man off his feet. Aron stepped to the edge, looked down at the vast, white wasteland, and plummeted.
He didn't use a parachute. He didn't even use flight stabilizers. He accelerated, his body becoming a living kinetic dart.
Aron hit the ice with the force of a tactical nuke.
A massive plume of white powder and shattered crystal erupted into the sky. When the mist cleared, a perfect, circular shaft had been punched through the ice, leading down into the hollowed-out remains of a Nazi flying wing.
Aron landed softly on the deck of the Valkyrie. The ship was a tomb of rusted iron and frozen dreams. He walked through the corridors, his footsteps echoing in the silence. He found the cockpit, and there, encased in a block of translucent blue ice, was a man holding a circular shield.
"Found him," Aron said into his comms.
Minutes later, the rest of the team descended via winches. Bucky was the first to reach the floor. He walked toward the ice block, his metal hand reaching out to touch the frozen surface. He didn't speak, but the look on his face told Aron everything.
"He's still in there, Bucky," Aron said softly. "Raphael says his heart is just waiting for a spark."
"Let's get him home," Bucky rasped.
The return to Malibu was a silent affair. Steve Rogers was placed in a high-tech medical pod in the basement, where Bruce Banner and Raphael worked in tandem to slowly raise his core temperature.
"His cellular structure is incredible," Banner remarked, looking at the data. "The serum... it's not just holding him together; it's protecting him from the ice damage. It's the most elegant piece of bio-engineering I've ever seen."
"It was a good start," Aron said, leaning against the pod. "But the world he's waking up to is a lot messier than the one he left."
The lights in the lab flickered and died. Red emergency lights bathed the room in a bloody glow.
"Tony! Bucky!" Aron shouted.
From the shadows of the lab, a series of mechanical clicks echoed. Six figures emerged, wearing tactical gear marked with a stylized, white owl. They weren't Hydra. They weren't S.H.I.E.L.D.
"The Court of Owls?" Aron muttered, his eyes narrowing. No, that was DC. He searched his memory. "The Hand? No... these are mercenaries."
"We're the 'Clean-Up Crew'," the leader said, raising a high-tech pulse rifle. "Mr. Stane left a few contingencies in case he failed. He didn't like the idea of the Starks having a god in the basement."
The mercenaries opened fire.
Aron didn't move. The pulses of energy hit his chest and dissipated harmlessly. He felt a surge of boredom. "Is that it?"
He moved.
He didn't kill them—he didn't want the mess in the lab—but he was efficient. He moved between them, snapping their weapons like dry twigs and knocking them unconscious with precise taps to the temple. In five seconds, the threat was neutralized.
But the last mercenary had a smile on his face. He held a small, black remote. "The EMP wasn't to kill you, Stark. It was to mask the transport."
Aron looked at the medical pod. It was empty.
The cloaking tech Loki had used—or something similar—had been used to snatch Steve Rogers right from under their noses.
"They took him," Bucky growled, stepping out of the shadows with his rifle raised. "Who took him?"
"Hydra didn't want the serum," Aron realized, his eyes glowing red with growing anger. "They wanted the symbol. They're going to turn the Captain into their greatest weapon."
Aron looked at Tony, who was just arriving in a half-assembled Mark IV suit.
"Suit up, Tony," Aron said, the floor beneath him beginning to crack as his power peaked. "We're going to war. And this time, I'm not holding back."
"What about the 'humanized' approach?" Tony asked, his voice shaking with the gravity of the situation.
"The humans are safe," Aron said, his form beginning to shimmer with the raw energy of the Doomsday Gene. "It's the monsters that should be worried."