Tony stood up, towering over Strucker like he was already a corpse.
"Jarvis, begin data extraction. I want his brain turned inside out. Every movie he's ever watched, every meal he's ever eaten, every lie he's ever told. Especially everything related to HYDRA."
"Yes, sir."
A pulse of invisible sonic waves rippled from Tony's armor, wrapping Strucker in its field.
The baron's body convulsed violently. His eyes rolled back, foam bubbled from his mouth, and his screams didn't even sound human anymore.
The signal's frequency penetrated the brain, decoding neural patterns that Jarvis then reconstructed into visual data for storage.
Henry, still holding Wanda, silently took a few steps back—away from the frankly disturbing sight.
He lowered his gaze to the girl in his arms. Her brows furrowed even in unconsciousness, her expression pained. Henry sighed softly and brushed a thumb over the crease between her brows.
"Hey, Tony," he said suddenly, cutting through the sound of Strucker's shrieks.
"What?" Tony didn't look up; his focus stayed on the streams of data racing across the holographic display.
"What do you plan to do with these two?" Henry asked.
Tony froze.
He turned his head, glanced at Wanda in Henry's arms, then at Pietro lying nearby, still unconscious. His brow furrowed deeply.
"What do you mean—what am I supposed to do?" he snapped irritably.
"Obviously, we… we…"
He trailed off. The words just wouldn't come.
Lock them up? They were just kids HYDRA had manipulated. The girl had nearly killed him minutes ago, sure—but still just a kid.
Release them? That meant setting two powerful, hostile metahumans loose in the world.
And hand them over to S.H.I.E.L.D.? Tony let out a derisive laugh. The same S.H.I.E.L.D. that HYDRA had infested like termites in a wooden house? Might as well mail them straight back to HYDRA HQ.
"See? You can't think of a good option either." Henry pointed out calmly.
"So, I have a proposal."
"Shoot."
"We bring them home," Henry said simply.
Tony blinked. Then stared at him like he'd just grown a second head.
"You've lost it, haven't you? Bring them home?! You want to take two wannabe terrorists who just tried to kill us back to our house?!" Tony's voice climbed an octave. "That's a mansion, not a halfway house for juvenile delinquents!"
"First of all, we don't exactly have a 'superhero tower' yet," Henry corrected.
"Second, they're not terrorists—they're kids blinded by hate. And that hate… started with us. With Stark Industries' weapons."
Tony's expression darkened. That wound—his family's legacy—was one that never really healed.
"So what?" he shot back, his voice brittle.
"People die every day, Henry. Car crashes, disease, bad luck. Am I supposed to take responsibility for every car accident because the vehicle used a Stark Industries part?"
"You know what I mean," Henry said evenly.
"This isn't about guilt—it's about responsibility. The Stark name carries both creation and destruction. We can't change our past, but we can choose how we face it. Running away isn't how Starks do things."
He held Tony's gaze, calm but firm.
"If we leave them, HYDRA—or someone worse—will find them again. Use them again. If we take them home, at least we give them a choice. A chance to live free from hate."
Tony was silent.
He looked at Wanda—fragile and small in Henry's arms—then at Pietro, sprawled limply on the ground. For a moment, the ever-cocky Iron Man just looked… tired.
"Fine."
After a long pause, he exhaled heavily, like it physically pained him to agree.
"We'll do it your way. But let me be clear—if they mess with my lab, or eat chips on my leather couch, I swear I'll pack them both up and express-mail them straight into orbit!"
Henry chuckled. He knew his brother too well. Beneath the sarcasm and temper, Tony's heart was soft as ever.
"Relax, I'll keep an eye on them."
"Data extraction complete, sir," Jarvis reported suddenly, breaking their moment.
"All of Baron Strucker's neural data has been copied. Also, I've located the facility's self-destruct sequence based on his memories."
"Well done, Jarvis." Tony's grin returned. He looked at the twitching, brain-dead lump that used to be Strucker, and smiled coldly.
"Set the countdown—one minute."
"Let's celebrate our European tour with some fireworks."
"Yes, sir."
The blaring alarm echoed once more through the underground base—but this time, it wasn't a warning. It was a requiem.
"Let's go." Henry adjusted his hold on Wanda and looked toward Pietro's unconscious body.
Tony nodded and flew over, grabbing the silver-haired boy like a sack of potatoes.
"Gotta say, he's heavier than he looks," Tony muttered.
"What the hell's this kid been eating?"
"Maybe Stark Industries-brand protein shakes," Henry quipped.
The brothers—one carrying, one hauling—took off without another glance back.
Behind them, the countdown ticked down to zero.
A blinding flash swallowed the base.
BOOM!
The explosion triggered a massive avalanche, white torrents roaring down the mountainside, burying the ruins—and every dark secret inside—beneath endless snow.
Hovering in the sky, Tony watched the destruction below, his voice soft.
"Beautiful."
"Yeah," Henry agreed quietly beside him. "Sometimes destruction really is the purest form of art."
Tony turned to him, then at the unconscious twins. He sighed.
"I'm starting to regret this."
"Regret what?"
"Agreeing to bring these two freeloaders. Guess our little HYDRA world tour's on hold. Time to go home and install some damn security fences."
***
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