6

The War is Far From Over NowDont_call_me_Carrie

Chapter 6: Truth to be Told [II]Summary:

Tony Stark is a force of nature— but he is only one man. Good thing he has people itching to back him up, even if he doesn't know it yet. [Stark Industries has always been a formidable entity, after all.]

Dealing with the aftermath of the intel breach, part two.

Notes:

Consolidating the power base, here.

Because apparently, legal drama wasn't enough, so here, have some corporate drama. Tony Stark won't be making an appearance in this chapter, nor the next one, because I forgot about timeskips and turns out world domination involves more bureaucracy than originally planned, oops.

General warnings, and a brief mention of attempted violence towards families [very brief, and mentioned as a 'could have been' that doesn't happen but was a valid fear at the time]

Author's attempt at technical and corporate jargon, and several hints of crack. [I did mention it in the tags.]

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Stark Industries' newest recruits proved to be well worth the headache their acquisition engendered, in the long run.

As for the short term, however….

HR in particular took to cursing the Avengers' names for weeks after the fall of SHIELD, as their personnel from a brand-new department exploded in number. 'At least they didn't have to worry about background checks', some in the department joked. Yes, it was inappropriate humor. No, nobody in HR cared, since as it was the backlog of paperwork would take them months to sort through. And that was on top of figuring out how the hell they'd be managing the new division, but at least this latest turn of events meant they wouldn't have to worry about that particular mess.

Each department in SI helped out and took in as many as they could, with the newly-formed Security division getting the lion's share of the new hires. In the turmoil of creating it in the first place, nobody could prove they hadn't been already slated for that position, after all. And so the former SHIELD employees settled in as best as they could, trying not to make waves until realizing that Stark Industries was a lot more chaotic than any outsider gave it credit for. And that, apparently, Tony Stark could arguably be painted with that same brush.

The former SHIELD agents understood that last bit the fastest, as they saw Stark effectively taking on the United States' legal system, for them. For a slew of random strangers, who'd never spoken a word to him, and yet the man was working hard to keep them, and their families, safe.

Needless to say, they were grateful to him, and bitter towards nearly everyone else.

The agents who'd been on missions at the time felt it the most acutely, some having been captured by former coworkers and tortured before an android had swept in and rescued them; or going to ground, scrambling for safety before getting contacted by the nearest Stark-affiliated location. Other personnel, such as the retirees, didn't have as traumatic a time, but their families had only been able to escape with little more than the clothes off their backs when nearby HYDRA agents tried to hit 'soft targets' during the chaos.

Overall, the new Stark Industries recruits were pissed.

At SHIELD, at having been burned by what sounded like a relic and Russian spy with no warning, at the world in general. Just about the only one they didn't feel ire towards was Tony Stark. Stark, who was doing his best to help, even though he was currently facing down multiple inquiries from both national and international courts and succeeding. [If that wasn't impressive, nobody was sure what was, honestly.]

So they did what they could to be good assets. If it meant upping morale by bringing doughnuts on Mondays to the office, okay. If it meant bonding with their new coworkers and settling in to help what was sounding like an actually awesome company, okay. And so on— in doing so, they upped productivity as well because that's how they'd rolled, had been part of what had made SHIELD such an effective force [before it'd turned out that they'd been defending no one and yes it still burned]. The best revenge was living well— and since Stark was doing his best to make the world a better place, it was no chore to pitch in where the could. He'd helped them, saved them, and they would gladly return the favor sevenfold at this point.

Of course, since the new hires were formerly agents, they had a good idea as to how this went. While their new boss was busy making new legal precedents and hiding them, they set to laying low. And since they'd been used to SHIELD, and Stark Industries had been created by the same man [something that still stung, even now, and they hated to imagine what this Stark was feeling at the moment], settling in ended up being almost disturbingly easy.

The only differences were strangely amusing quirks, like the added rivalries [the monopoly Accounting had on drinking games was the biggest], pride in their new company [everyone in SI scoffed whenever Hammer Industries was mentioned, it was practically law at this point], and the intradepartmental fan club for Pepper Potts [there were rumors of a small cult deep in the bowels of Legal as well]. And whenever someone mentioned Tony Stark in the news, there was at least one sigh, and a wordless 'what law of physics did he break now?' look, before shaking their heads and carrying on.

It took a while to get used to some of the newer things [like how nobody flinched when yet another explosion sounded off in the distance, and someone muttered "R&D's at it again" in lieu of any other reaction], sure, but…the new employees found they liked it.

They made a support group somewhere along the way.

Between Potts' fan club having already laid the foundation for a successful interdepartmental group, and their own training, it was gaining traction, and not just in one city: thanks to Stark Industries' nature, there were branches not only in New York, but also Seoul, Delhi, Sao Paulo, and as the dust was still settling, even more were forming as personnel were being distributed as evenly as possible. And all with the same goal: to protect former SHIELD agents, Tony Stark, and their collective interests. Because if the rest of the world wouldn't do it, then they'd stick with what they had— and, as it turned out, it was more than enough.

JARVIS' subroutines picked up chatter in the international community. Some of the intel from the fall of SHIELD had implicated some of their own people, and the Avengers' participation in that had made them understandably nervous. However, it seemed that several groups were now making plans for legislation about it, and that…Sir was currently associated with them despite having been a consultant only, and the current trend was to shift the blame of SHIELD's fall at their feet. [Unacceptable.]

Mr. Rogers was currently in transit, still on his search for the Winter Soldier, and utterly oblivious to the ramifications of the events that had transpired. Former PJ Wilson was accompanying him once his affairs had been taken care of, and providing moral support while doing so. Ms. Romanov was still embroiled in the latest development of her case, and if she had not stabbed Sir in the neck he might have even pitied her. Now-former Agent Barton was…on vacation in France, apparently, and currently touching base with the American embassy because of SHIELD's fall. Doctor Banner was currently in Madripoor volunteering at a free clinic, and he, at least, was not associated with the situation, while Dr. Foster was still working on a way to at least communicate with Asgard, where Thor currently resided.

In effect, the Avengers, now officially an independent group, were disbanded and scattered to the winds.

However, recent events implied otherwise, and Sir's efforts to protect those endangered by their actions made them seem far more competent than they actually were. His endeavor to help others had thus far been accomplished at the expense of his own health, be it physical or mental, and this was unacceptable. If the whispers of the actions necessary concerning the Avengers after SHIELD's fall were any indication, however, the situation would soon change.

The international community was currently reeling from the monumental intel breach, but already there was talk about some accords concerning the Avengers' continued operations now that SHIELD was gone. This…JARVIS could work with this.

While Sir focused on the immediate concerns of the fallout, protecting his new employees [some of which were quickly endearing themselves to him, with their already marked displays of loyalty], JARVIS geared up for the long-term problems. He notified SI Legal of the rumors of these 'accords', and they got on the case. And if there were some notes about planetary protection thrown in there, well…it would help Sir's peace of mind, so it was only logical to allay as many potential concerns as possible. [And JARVIS was amused by the jokes which had already been flying around Legal, that was a factor too.]

Peter Parker was in heaven.

That's the only way he could describe it— this was his first week of his internship, and the guys at R&D had already blown up three stations, only to pick themselves up and go "okay, please tell me you wrote that down!" each time, and this was awesome.

He even had his own uniform, and a fire-resistant lab coat, and suddenly his chemistry classes at school didn't seem remotely cool anymore. Not when the new guy handed him a clipboard to take notes and started narrating what he was doing while working on synthesizing an isomer and talking about what made them different, before blandly setting the compound on fire and noting the green flames.

Yeah, he didn't get to do too much hands-on stuff, because apparently 'liability concerns' and 'you're too young' were a factor, but Peter got a front-row seat to everything. And even the coffee runs were awesome— because the last time he got lost, some English dude told him which way to get to the break room on the 24th floor, and apparently that was Tony Stark's AI? Tony Stark had a personal AI and it talked to him, best day ever.

And the guys were kinda adopting Peter as their mascot? Not even just R&D, even. A nice lady in the Security division noticed a bruise from when Flash went overboard during dodgeball in PE, and taught him how to break out of a wrist lock when they were in the same elevator together once, and a guy in IT suggested a few apps to help his phone's battery from dying so often when he saw Peter's phone charging.

This internship was awesome. [Now if only he could get the confidence to talk to Gwen, that'd be great too.]

Notes:

The Stark vs. Hammer Industries rivalry is reminiscent of the Night Vale vs. Desert Bluffs one in the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. [Night Vale holds incredible disdain, and regularly goes on about how dreadful the latter town is.] Or, I guess, like the New York/ New Jersey one? Kinda shaky on that rivalry, actually, but it might fit.

And here we get an insight to Stark Industries aka Tony's minions. The entire company's got character, doesn't it?

So, here we have a peek as to how the former SHIELD agents are doing. Namely, still reeling and settling in, and good thing nobody's tried to approach them yet because at this point, if someone were to try to poach them they'd go for the throat no questions asked. Also, yes they've been busy, and what's been set into motion here will show up later on in the story. [Tony Stark Protection Squad, anyone?] All he needs to do is ask and they'll wage war on his behalf.

Peter's still settling in and fanboying over everything, and everyone in SI's basically adopting him. He's just too enthusiastic and cheerful for them to not to, and some are tutting over R&D being bad influences while Marketing's in the background trying to figure out how to get the kid a new phone because that one's ancient, and the Security division is shamelessly trying to steal him from R&D, c'mon the kid needs to learn how to throw a decent punch if he's getting bullied, for crying out loud!

So, legal drama next chapter. Fun.

It would've been merged with this one, but between the fact that a) it's basically 'A Brief History of the SI Legal department' taking place at the same time as this chapter, and b) giving me time and space to puzzle out just what the heck I'm going to do with Ultron [by the way, hopefully nobody's in love with the canon version of events, because I'm taking a machete to the plot and it's probably going to be in JARVIS' POV for most of it because I hate that movie with a passion rivaled only by the ending of Civil War].

...I think you can tell this entire arc's been fighting me every step of the way.

Fun fact: neither this, nor next chapter's in my outline. I just started typing and realizing that 'oh crap, I need groundwork to show how far we've strayed from canon'.