Chapter 14: Iron Man 2 and Kilgrave!

Chapter 14:

June 5th, 2011:

I reach New York at 8 AM local time. After reaching home, I first store the staff pieces in my lab in a safe, I didn't want anyone to accidentally touch even one piece. Even I didn't want to touch them before I have a chance to really examine them. After storing the staff pieces, I just sleep for 2 hours. The trip was honestly exhausting.

At 11 AM, after freshening up and eating something other than motel food, I go to my lab to work.

"Good morning, Siri. Any news worth mentioning?" I ask as soon as I enter the lab.

"Yes, sir. Anton Vanko was found dead in his cell last night, due to an explosion. Tony Stark made an announcement, declaring Pepper Potts as the new CEO of Stark International, and organized a huge party last night, during which Lt. Col. James Rhodes was seen taking off with an old Iron Man armour. Also, Justin Hammer has booked a slot for the Expo at June 8th, at 8 PM." Siri faithfully tells me everything I missed in these few days. Huh. Turns out a lot can happen in 4 days.

I think for a bit, and say, "Very well. Keep an eye on Justin Hammer. Firstly, bring up the schematics for the stealth tech. I should really improve it, I don't want to be the next Justin Hammer."

I work on the stealth tech using retro-reflective panels for 6 hours and manage to make it so not even Shield could find me. I also included a few signal scramblers to hide myself from any tracking devices. Making it compact was hard, but I managed it. After designing everything, I ask Siri to order the required materials for 2 such Cloaks and send the plans for a less advanced version to Oscorp to sell the military. It'll be helpful for them to have it.

After that is finished, I work on scanning the staff pieces, both alone and together. But other than the fact that the staff could amplify energy, I don't find anything new. The metal it was made from was the same as the Destroyer, Praedium, so I at least know it's safe to absorb. You know, other than the fact it'll make me crazy.

Keeping the staff away for a while, I turn to Siri and say, "Siri, start a new project, EMP guns. Bring up the designs for Oscorp's EMP bomb."

"Sir? The EMP bombs were deemed unsafe, are you sure you want to start with that?" Siri asks, concerned. Well she's right to be concerned, Oscorp somehow made an EMP bomb strong enough to disable a helicopter about to take off right above it. Thankfully its range was shit. The EMP bomb was tested on the top floor, and it only affected the electronics up to 2 floors down.

"Yes, Siri. Those ones. Ugh it's so ugly." Frankly, it was ugly. The parts were sort of cluttered together, without any form of design.

"Let's take out that, modify this so it works on lower voltage, just plain remove that, it's not even fucking needed!" I play with the designs for close to 3 hours and end up with a gun. I build it with the parts I had lying around in the lab and programed it so that it'll work at twice the output. This could theoretically be able to shut down any of the drones that Hammer is currently building, possibly even Iron Man, but I don't want to do that. And Tony Stark is smart enough that he probably already has a failsafe against EMP.

I spent the next 2 days, until the Expo training and fixing up a few gizmos for myself and Peter. I designed a pair of Eskimos for Peter with stun capabilities, and also included knock out gas. He got just one day to train with them though. I make them from Titanium, because it is the strongest metal available to me, other than Praedium. I also tune up his suit to now account for his additional strength. I didn't have to worry about my suit because of Venom.

Finally the time came to go to the Expo. I'd already told Peter to be suited up and ready at the Expo, because I had a bad feeling about it. He listened, as he usually does, to me and here we were at Flushing Meadows, NY, at the location of the Stark Expo. The expo was about to start in 10 minutes and we were perched at a building overlooking it.

"Everything alright, Spidey? You look a bit down?" I ask Peter after looking at his masked face.

"Yeah, other than the fact that I have to watch a demonstration by Hammer Tech of all things because of your bad feelings. How did you even know I'm upset?" Peter says and then exclaims suddenly.

"Probably something to do with my guest." Honestly, I'd forgotten this one good thing about Symbiots, they are really good empaths.

"Huh. Nice. Anyway, what are we looking for?" Peter asks looking at the Expo site.

"Well, Siri told me Hammer's going to demonstrate a few drones based on the Iron Man armour for the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force. 8 drones for each branch, I think." I tell him what Siri had found out by hacking into Hammer Industries.

"And if we know Hammer tech, then the drones will either not even move from their places, or blow up. Sigh. I was really looking for a calm evening today, guess not." Peter continues where I left off.

I nod sagely and keep looking for anything suspicious. Soon the Expo starts as the movies entailed, by Hammer trying to imitate Tony Stark, making a really bad joke and showcasing the Hammer Drones. There were 32 drones in total and one Iron Man suit, which was now called War Machine.

"Something's not right." Peter says, looking at the incoming Iron Man.

"Yeah. He wouldn't have come to Hammer's demonstration, not even to crash it, unless necessary." I say while preparing to go in.

Iron Man joins Rhodes on the stage and they have a whispered conversation after which he turns to Hammer and says something we can't hear over the noise of the crowd.

"Be ready, Venom." Peter says, fearing the worst.

Soon his fears get proved right when War Machine turns his guns to Iron Man, after which every drone on the stage starts aiming at Tony too.

"Move in!" I shout and start swinging in. "Siri, try and reboot the drones." I say while on the way.

"Their systems are compromised sir. Manual override will be necessary." Siri replies after checking.

The drones take that moment to start firing their guns at Iron Man who flies away from the stage to prevent human casualties. The glass top of the Expo breaks apart, showering the audience with glass, who now know something is wrong and start panicking and running away.

"Well we ain't got time for that. Just find out where the drones are being controlled from and send that location to Coulson. Tell him about this event." Coulson already knows about my assistant Siri, though he's never met her.

"Yes sir." Siri says and shuts up.

By the time we reach the Expo, Iron Man and War Machine are nowhere to be seen, along with the air force drones. They are probably following Tony around as he destroys them. As soon as I enter the arena, I bring out my EMP gun and fire it once at a drone about to fire a rocket into the crowd. He shuts down immediately.

I then fire it at another drone who fires his machine gun at me, which I dodge, but the gun gets destroyed, thankfully the EMP blast hits and the drone drops down, dead.

"Hey! I spent 3 hours on that thing! Note to self, work on making the EMP gun more durable. Also, make 2 at a time." I exclaim and make up a katana in my hands and start attacking the drones, seeing Peter save the people from a drone by pulling them away with his webs. His first priority is always saving people, but that way I can concentrate on destroying the drones, while he saves the public.

A navy drone notices me first and fires a heavy machine gun round at me, which I dodge. I could have just let them hit me, but I didn't want to let anyone know bullets won't hurt me. I get close to the drone and use my sword to cut his hand off. Wow! The sword is sharp! Then without wasting time, I stab the sword into its chest and destroy the arc reactor. The drone drops down dead.

By now, the drones had noticed me and Peter, who had destroyed 2 drones, doing the same. So they started ignoring people in favour of us, which is what I'd wanted. I start attacking with double the speed while dodging bullets and rockets from the drones and destroy the arc reactor for each drone. Peter just punches each drone in the chest with enough force to shatter the power source as well as their joints.

"Shield has been notified of this event. Agent Coulson has promised to send someone to the secondary location, to secure the hacker who has taken control of the drones." Siri's voice interrupts me from my musing.

"It's probably Vanko, so send him a text asking them to be careful. We'll be dealing with the drones." I say and look for more drones to destroy. We had collectively disabled only 12 drones and I could see 6 more. I know the air force drones went after Tony, so there had to have been 24 drones on the ground.

Unless some more drones followed them, which is worrying, but they can handle it.

I turn to Peter and nod towards the drones. We start running towards a drone each, him just a little faster than me and punch the drones with all our strengths. The marines drone that I punched got thrown away from me, while the one Peter punched just blew up because if the strength of the punch. I pout at that.

"Stop pouting! You're ruining my image!" Venom grumbles.

I snort at him, and say, "What image?" Venom grumbles some more, which he does a lot and I ignore him in favour if dodging the bullets. Seriously, they have nothing else in their arsenal. Just rapid bullets with occasional missiles, thankfully short range.

I see another drone point his hand blasters at a kid wearing an Iron Man mask, who puts his hands up pretending to blast the drone. I take that moment to web the boy and bring him towards me while simultaneously throwing my sword at the drones chest. As the drone falls down, I look at the kid and examine him. I knew this kid was supposed to be Peter Parker in the MCU franchise, so who was this now?

"Miles!" a female voice interrupts me from my musing, and I see an attractive black woman come towards me. Huh. So this is Miles Morales. He's still young, about 9-10.

I give Miles back to his mother and smile at her. Remembering she can't see my face, I will half my mask to recede and smile at them again.

"Ya'll should get out of here. This place is about to blow. Don't stay near any of those fallen robots." I tell them and swing away to destroy another drone.

Within 15 minutes, all the drones in our vicinity were destroyed. I check in the HUD to see if I have anything else incoming, but don't find anything, so I let my guard down for a bit. There were 3 blips on my screen, about a mile away from me, which was probably Vanko fighting with Iron Man and War Machine nearby, but I knew Tony could handle it.

I go from drone to drone and destroy their arc reactors. I even pluck out a few of the repulsors to study. They might not be the real thing, but they were replicas of Stark Tech. I hide it within myself for convenience. I even see Peter taking a few things from the drones.

"Didn't think the Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderman was a thief." I say with a smirk, from right behind him and enjoy it a lot when Peter jumps 4 feet into the air.

"Don't fucking do that!" Peter exclaims.

"Ooh. You kiss your aunt with that mouth?" I couldn't resist. Peter tries not to swear, but being in my company for so long has corrupted him, a lot.

"Shut it! I saw you take those repulsors too. Hey! Hide these within yourself too, then!" Peter says with a puppy eyed look, which just looks weird with that mask on, suddenly remembering that I can store things within Venom.

I sigh, exaggerating a bit and take what Peter gives me. It was a lot. Four repulsors, two legs and two arms, a gun? Why the fuck did Peter steal a gun from killer robots? He also took an arc reactor, which I keep outside. Simply because, I knew it'll be exploding soon, but before I can even say anything, it starts beeping along with a few of the broken arc reactors in the drones. Huh. I did not check for an alternative power source for the self destruct mode.

"Uh oh." Peter says, and I throw the reactor far away from us and jump high into the air to avoid the explosions. Venom's not immune to fire, yet. I plan on using the extrimis virus to do something. I glare at Peter and say,

"Yes, uh oh. That would have exploded inside Venom. Dumbass."

But even Peter knows I'm not angry at him. The chance to study the arc reactor was too much to throw away, but I'd rather build one on my own after studying the big thing's schematics, which Siri is trying to gain access to.

"Sorry for that!" Peter mumbles, a little scared, because he could have killed me.

I sigh at him and say, "Yeah no worries, I'd have done the same if I didn't have Siri looking for the schematics of the big one. And no harm was done Spidey!" I smile at him in the Venom mask, which probably scared anyone who saw it.

Peter laughs nervously and sits down on the ground. By now everything was silent. We sit there for a while and then return home swinging.

The next morning in the news they report that Justin Hammer was arrested for working with a known terrorist.

".. was attacked by the drones which were to be presented by Justin Hammer to the US armed forces, when they turned on Iron Man and started attacking everyone indiscriminately. The air forces were taken care of by the pair of Iron Man and War Machine, piloted by Lt. Col. James Rhodes, while the ground forces were destroyed by the Spider pair, Spider-Man and a now sword wielding Black-Spider. Both of these pairs were reported trying to distract the drones from the running crowd to prevent casualties. Police reports say that 21 people died by bullet wounds while 50 people were injured by falling glass as well as in mass panic. Reporting for..."

I turn off the TV and look at Peter's solemn face. I was upset too. When I'd seen the movie, I didn't even imagine people could have died there. But seeing the situation first hand? That was just.. chaotic.

Me and Peter being there prevented more deaths from occurring. So how many would have died if we weren't there?

"We did all we could, Pete. We just acted late." I say after a while of silence.

"Yeah. We should have jumped in as soon as Iron Man came in." Peter says. Yeah we should have.

"Yes. We could have jumped in, Pete. But we didn't have any sufficient reasons to do it. We were there just as a precaution, so we could not have predicted that would have happened. I'm sorry, those people died, I really am. But if we weren't there, more of them would have died. We saved a lot of people, Pete. I'm not telling you to forget this, but don't let it get to your head. We can't save everyone, Pete." I try reasoning with him, though knowing Peter, he'll still overthink.

"I'll just have to try harder next time, then." Peter says, passionately. "We made a mistake by waiting for something bad to happen and not listening to our instincts. The next time our guts warn us of something, we'll do something about it. Alright?" he asks me.

Well colour me impressed, I thought he'd be depressed for a month or something. I stand up and hug him.

When I first met him, I only became his friend because he was going to become Spiderman. But now? Now he's my best friend and I can proudly say it.

That day, when we fight, Peter fights extra hard and wins against me using pure skill, not a trick like last time. Which was amazing, because it also motivates me to work harder. We spar for 2 hours and I even teach him some kenjutsu by making two blunt katanas out of Praedium to practice with. Never know when we'll need it. Also, I finally give Peter his eskrimo sticks. He gets really happy and starts learning how to use them on Youtube. I laugh at him doing that first, but then I remember I learned Krav-Maga by renting out videos. At least Peter has it free.

July 5th,2011:

It was a normal day for me. Waking up at 5 AM to train for 3 hours, checking up my email to see if any colleges have replied back to my applications, I'm hoping for NYU, but any other college will be okay. Tonight I'm going to check up on something. I know that the Agents of Shield storyline is within the MCU as the berserker staff exists, so I wanted to know if the other series's exist too. I knew from my business that Rand Enterprises existed, with Danny Rand still too young to handle his business and his parents dead, so Iron Fist exists. But what about the others?

I search for them and find out a few things. Firstly, I'm looking for them way early. Carl Lucas hasn't ever been to prison, Jessica Jones is in college and Matt Murdock is still in Law School, and will be for another 3 years, while Frank Castle was in the military. So none of the Web series superheroes were working yet. I don't think Jessica has even met Kilgrave yet.

Speaking of Kilgrave, what should I do about him. I could find out where he is and have him dead within the hour, but is it worth losing how Jessica becomes? Yes, yes it does.

I find a photo of Kevin Thompson on the web and run facial recognition on him. Observing him for a few days, I find out that he's already had his powers for a few months at least. He's currently stealing a nice car from someone by just asking for the owner to drive him somewhere. I follow the car through the cameras and see him stop on a lonely road to let a little girl out. Okay, that's just wrong.

I immediately decide to intervene and suit up to go help the girl, and call Coulson and say, "Hey Coulson, there's an enhanced human with possible mind control powers. You want me to take care of him or will you do it?"

Coulson just hums and asks, "Why do you think it's mind control?"

"Well the bastard just asked a man to drive him somewhere, going towards downtown by just telling him to drive. Then after a few minutes, the driver stopped the car and told his 5-6 year old daughter to get out of the car. I'm currently on the way to bring her to a cop or something actually. Before that, I saw him eating at a few 5 star restaurants without paying anything, got a gun from a cop, and here's the kicker, walked into a fancy hotel each night, and rented out the best room there, without reservation, and got out without even paying." I rant. The 3 days I observed him were really eye opening. I'll deal with Jessica when she starts using her powers.

"What's his name? And send me his photo." Coulson asks, now serious.

I ask Siri to send him the file I had on him and she does so. Coulson hums and starts reading the file. Meanwhile I reach the road where I saw Kilgrave drop the girl and see her being cared for by a female cop, so I ignore the situation and start tracking him once more.

"I've read it. But it looks like arresting him won't work unless we find something to neutralise his powers. But we don't even know how his powers developed. His parents are scientists and missing, so it could be them that gave him the powers." Here, Coulson pauses and says after a while, "I can't risk you going dark on us Osborn. I'll take care of it."

"Thanks, I didn't want to test myself against that guy. But remember, don't let anyone hear his voice. Kill him from a distance, we already know he's a bad criminal. You can observe him for a few days if you wish. But do it from a distance, please. If anything happens to any agent it'll be on me, I don't want that." I plead. I seriously don't want the knowledge Shield has in the hands on a psychopath like Kilgrave.

"Understood. I'll consult with Director Fury and get back at you." Coulson says, and shuts the phone.

I see the girl being taken in the cop car and go home. I need to keep an eye on Kilgrave. I ask Siri to observe Kilgrave at all times and notify me of any and every thing he does. His crimes include stealing, raping women, having parents abandon their kids, and a lot more. I do manage to take a blood sample from him with a small drone, while he was asleep, so that I could develop something to fight against Mind Control. Loki will be controlling minds too, although on a larger scale.

About a week after my call to Coulson, while I'm working on Kilgrave's blood, I get interrupted by Siri saying, "Sir, Kevin Thompson was shot in the head by a sniper just now." I snap my head towards Siri and say,

"Bring up the video." Which Siri does. I see Kilgrave walking alongside a woman who had a blank look on her face, going towards a Hotel. He enters the building and after talking to the receptionist for a while, goes up the lift towards the top suite. He's just standing there on the balcony, when Kilgrave's head snaps to one side and he falls down, while the woman looks at his body blankly, still in the trance.

My phone rings and seeing Coulson's name on the screen, I pick up, "Barton?" I ask without prompting.

Coulson sighs and says, "Yes. Barton. You should have left the situation alone. I told you we had it handled."

I sigh exasperatedly, "And I did not interfere. I just, observed him." I point out.

"Yes, we noticed. So what are you going to do with that blood?" Coulson asks me. I'm not surprised he knew, it's Shield.

"I'm currently trying to separate the drugs that gave him those powers. Once I do that, I'll have a cure ready within a week. I don't like it, but he was bad. Just seeing that father's face when he found his daughter again was heart breaking. I don't want anything like that happening again." I say, remembering the father looking for his daughter after dropping Kilgrave. It took him asking every police station near the location to find her. The cops didn't believe him at first, but when the daughter told them the same thing, they gave her back to the father.

"Didn't know you had a heart Osborn. Will you give us the cure after you work it out?" Coulson jokes and asks.

"The cure? Yes. But I really hope you don't try to replicate the powers. It's too dangerous for one person to have that much power." I say seriously.

Coulson hums and says, "I'll inform my superiors of your warning. I hope you tell me if anything else catches your eye."

"Sure, Coulson." I sigh when he cuts the phone off.

So, I prevented Jessica from being controlled by Kilgrave. How will this exactly affect her? She's still a couple years away from becoming a superhero Jewel. So I'll deal with it when she starts roaming the streets in spandex. I work on the blood for another hour before just giving up for today. I was really distracted to do anything today.

I do my daily patrol, saving a few people from muggings and go home at 2 AM. This Kilgrave situation was really bad and I'll have to take a few showers to get the stink of death off of me. I indirectly caused Kilgrave's death, but prevented Jessica from killing Carl Lucas' wife in the future as well as prevented her from being forced to kill him. A fair exchange, in my opinion.

That night, after showering in warm water for close to half hour, I go to sleep.