The cool night air of Malibu rushed past the open cockpit of Tony's latest sports car, a visceral roar of wind and engine noise. As he neared the perimeter of his estate, his Technopathy reached out, "feeling" the hum of the servers in his basement and the standby pulse of the Mark III in the workshop.
Suddenly, a foreign signal triggered his mental alarm… a spike of unauthorized biometric data in the penthouse.
Tony leaned back in the driver's seat, his eyes glazing over slightly as his Cognitive Multitasking spun up a high speed data thread. He reached out into the digital ether, bypassed the civilian internet entirely and dove straight into the encrypted archives of the Pentagon and the deep storage "ghost files" of the World Security Council.
The data flickered in his mind like a slideshow on fast forward. Nicholas J. Fury. Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The record was a patchwork of redacted operations, black budget expenditures and cold war secrets.
Tony smirked. A professional spook. How quaint.
"Let's see what the cyclops wants," Tony muttered, pulling into the garage with a flourish.
Tony entered the penthouse with a casual stride, tossing his keys onto a side table, his mental link already putting the house defenses on a hair trigger standby. He saw the man immediately… standing by the floor to ceiling window, staring out at the dark Pacific as if he were personally contemplating the fate of the universe. It was a classic "mysterious stranger" pose, backlit by the moon.
Tony almost laughed. It was so dramatic it was bordering on community theater.
"You think you're the only superhero in the world?" Fury's voice was a low rumble, designed to intimidate. "Mr. Stark, you've become part of a much bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."
Tony walked past him to the bar, pouring a drink without looking back. Through his Technopathy, his mind was already dissecting the high end encrypted pager in Fury's pocket, tracing its signal back to a satellite he didn't recognize.
"The 'shadowy man in the corner' bit is a little 1990s, don't you think?" Tony quipped, clinking ice into his glass. "And let me guess… you're here because of the 'Iron Man' files. I know Obadiah was busy selling the concept of iron warfare to the Pentagon behind my back before he... well, before he had his permanent change in employment status."
Fury turned slowly, his one eye tracking Tony's casual movements. "The Pentagon buried those files after the Stane incident. They want the world to think it was a localized power surge at the factory. They don't know the 'Iron Man' is a person, Stark. But I've seen the flight telemetry. I know exactly who was in that suit."
Tony swirled his drink, "For the record, I haven't approved that name. 'Iron Man.' It's catchy, sure, but if I'm going to be the face of a new era, I was thinking of something with more flair. The Golden Centurion? No, too Roman. The Cobalt Crusader? Too much. The Armored Alchemist? Maybe. But definitely not 'Iron Man.' It's technically a gold titanium alloy, but I guess 'Alloy Man' doesn't sell newspapers."
Fury's one eye fixed on Tony with a look of practiced patience. "I'm not here to talk about your branding, Stark."
"No, you're here because you broke into my house," Tony countered, his voice sharpening. "Which, by the way, is a felony in about fifty different ways. I don't care if you're a spy chief or the King of the Shadow Realm… you don't have a warrant and you don't have an invitation. I could have the LAPD or my robotic arm, DUM E toss you off this cliff in thirty seconds. I could file a case that would have you testifying until 2015."
Fury stepped into the light of the room. "The world is changing, Tony. The technology you've developed... it's a leap forward that humanity isn't ready for. I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative."
"Avengers? A boy band? No thanks," Tony quipped. "I'm a solo act. I don't play well with others and I certainly don't wear a uniform unless I designed it myself."
"It's a response team," Fury said, his voice hard. "But it's not just you. We've been watching Umbrella, too. We've been watching Aryan. You're building advanced armor that defies physics and your friend is currently wrapping the entire planet in a digital 'ecosystem' that even my best cryptographers can't crack. What are you two playing at, Tony? A private global takeover?"
Tony set his glass down, the clink echoing in the silence. His Technopathy flared as he felt the hidden micro transmitters on Fury's person. He sent a silent command, frying the spy's recording devices with a localized electromagnetic pulse.
"Aryan isn't building a 'takeover,' Nick. He's bringing efficiency to a world that's been running on dial up logic," Tony said, his voice cold. "He's creating a world where people are connected and where people like you can't sit in the dark and spy on everyone's breakfast orders. He's making the world transparent. I can see why that would terrify a man who lives in the shadows."
Fury looked at Tony, a grim smile appearing on his face. "You're protective of him. That's good. But remember this. You might have the fancy suits and the fast networks, but there are things coming that a digital world can't stop. When the real storm hits, you're going to wish you had a team."
"I've already got a team, Nick," Tony said, his mind flashing to the Tarot Club. "You just haven't been invited to the meeting."
Nick Fury simply adjusted the collar of his trench coat, gave Tony one last unreadable look from beneath the shadow of his brow and stepped back into the darkness of the hallway. By the time Tony's lights flickered back to full luminosity, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone.
Outside, leaning against the railing of a dark helipad overlooking the ocean, Fury stared at the waves, his internal monologue playing with the rhythmic precision of a war room briefing.
He thinks he's ahead of the curve, Fury thought, the wind whipping at his coat. Stark has always been a sprinter, but he's never realized the race doesn't have a finish line.
Fury reached into his pocket and pulled out his encrypted mobile device. The screen was static… fried by whatever localized EMP Stark had pulsed. He looked at the dead glass, a grim smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"I've already got a team," Stark had said.
That was the phrase that stuck in Fury's throat like a jagged pill. A team. Fury's mind raced, sifting through every known asset, every black ops group and every name in the hidden ledgers of S.H.I.E.L.D. Who were these individuals Stark was so confidently allied with? What kind of power did they wield that even S.H.I.E.L.D., with all its global reach, was utterly blind to them?
He's protective of Aryan, Fury mused, his mind cataloging the interaction. Stark provides the steel and Aryan provides the web. They've built a digital fortress around the planet, a "convenient ecosystem" that acts as a velvet curtain. They're blinding us with progress.
He thought about the "Iron Man" suit… the sheer impossibility of its power output. Then he thought about the "Umbrella" launch. It was too perfect. Too synchronized.
Stark is a genius, but he's a loud one, Fury thought. But this Aryan... he's the quiet type. The type that rewrites the world while everyone else is sleeping. They think they've built a shield. They think they are enough simply because they can calculate the trajectory of a missile or encrypt a file.
Fury let out a heavy breath. He had spent his life staring into the abyss and he knew that the abyss didn't care about high speed networks or gold titanium alloys.
They're playing God in a sandbox, Fury's thoughts darkened. They don't understand that there are things in this "bigger universe" that don't use circuits. There are shadows coming that you can't hack and gods coming that you can't out calculate.
He turned away from the Malibu coast, his mind already shifting to his next move. If Stark and Aryan were building a private world, he would just have to find the cracks in the foundation. Because when the "real storm" hit, he knew exactly what would happen. The digital world would flicker, the fancy suits would lose power and they would finally look to the man in the shadows for a way out.