Here's a prologue for you all.

Those of you who are new and just clicked it without truly reading the entire summary of the story, I recommend you read the first story "Along Came a Spider-Woman" to truly understand what's going on.

I also understand from several messages and comments left behind in the reviews that several people seemed to have not grasped the appearance of the OC's Spider costume. If you are reading from a mobile phone then look into Google images (or whatever your favorite search box is) and click the Spider Gwen costume. It's mostly similar with the exception that the OC's costume has a spider symbol on their chest. For those of you reading the fanfiction site normally, you can simply look on the cover art of "Along Came a Spider-Woman" and click on it to slightly magnify it in order to see it properly.

I was pretty sure I explained it in the story in chapter 9 in "ACASW" but I suppose a lot of people skipped that. Well, hopefully you guys know now how she really appears in the story. Anyway, here's the first chapter for you guys so please leave a review and tell me what you think. I also went and did some tweaking in this chapter because a reviewer left me a kind bit of advice that this story was written a bit poorly but that they loved this story too much to drop it, so I went back to work it a little more. Hope this is better than the last one!

Disclaimer: MCU belongs to Disney and Marvel Studios/Comics, I only claim ownership over my Original Character(s) and a little bit of the plot!

Warning: Language, Violence, Adult Content, possible Triggers (there will be heads-up for these things), and whatever comes to mind.

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B

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Preparations for the experiment was set, but they wanted to be cautious.

The Asset stood on the highest platform with the best viewpoint where he could shoot any hostiles upon command, or by extreme prejudice. The rest of the team surrounded the area, all weapons unlocked and ready to be utilized at the first sign of danger for whatever came through. Waiting, all the Asset heard from down below with his keen hearing was the scientist and engineering team on their discussion of whether they could truly open a doorway beyond their solar system. The Asset tuned them out as their voices grew grating from how irritated they were becoming as time went, filing back a report to make to his superiors about nervous scientists.

HYDRA had no need for a hesitant hand. Hesitance meant doubt, and doubt meant questioning, and questioning lead to—

(likefiresetabalzethatitreachedintohismindanddestroyedeverythingwhohewas)

There was a horn that alarmed everyone within the vicinity that the experiment was about to begin. With all hands at station, the soldiers drew up their weapons and prepared for the worst.

At first there was nothing... until there was flickers of light.

The Asset allowed his eyes to wander towards a platform station where sitting on a metal dais was an illuminated blue box that sparked infinite energy. A niggling sensation itched at the back of his head the longer he stared at it. There was something mesmerizing about the glowing cube sitting on the platform that seemed so—a shout from below made the Asset dart his eyes towards the main objective.

The flickers of light grew more frequent and large in scale, no longer like little matchsticks that he sometimes had seen handlers light up for their cigarettes. The lights were like flames that stubbornly blew out of existence before they had a chance to be of use, but the division was patient enough to continue trying to make the experiment work out.

The Asset knew several important figures were watching the entire experiment from a safe distance via video conference.

The flickering matchstick exploded.

The Asset's eyes flinched at the burning brightness before he forced himself to open them and look for the danger.

... except that he couldn't.

All he could see was an eternal bleeding of blue that overtook his entire world.

Life fire and water meshing together to make this fluid and coiling form that spread throughout the entire place, reaching beyond the people and the floors to reach and go farther.

A ripple of warmth encased the Asset, and he couldn't help but feel a sense of ease as it felt familiar to him. All the coldness that was his strength and bed melted off his shoulders like hands sweeping away the ice from his veins, and he closed his eyes.

It felt good.

Nothing lasted forever.

Soon as it had brought light, life, and spring, it exploded once more and then proceeded to implode until it whisked itself out of existence. No sign of the blue that bled into his eyes, the darkness was starting to close in, and the warmth was fading from his tingling fingers.

The Asset blinked, pushing away thoughts that had nothing to do with the purpose of the objective, of the mission, of the way of HYDRA.

(huddlinginsidetheblanketkeepingwarmandsafe)

... Yet there was a sense of exhilaration. Being engulfed in the illuminating blue, it was like a rush of something ancient and powerful seeping inside and flowing out from the top of his head to the underside of his toes. The itching sensation grew in volume, but he quickly restrained it; the Asset refused to be punished over something so trivial. His mind once again betrayed the Asset, letting it wonder about the warmth that had been absent for so long in his service to HYDRA.

For a moment, the Asset wondered vaguely if this was the sort of emotion bliss felt like.

Noise from below brought the Asset back to attention, and he looked to see what all the commotion was about.

There was a body lying at the bottom where the blue light had appeared.

The Doctors, the Agents, the Secretaries, and the Barons seemed to be displeased with the results of their experiment. They all appeared to have dismissed the blue light, the sneers and cold eyes telling enough the operation was immediately a failure. The Asset wondered if maybe there was a malfunction to him if there was no reaction of their experience with the blue light. He did not want to visit the Chair so soon after being defrosted from his cold bed, but the Asset may need to report it. After all, the Asset was considered the slowest in learning the ways of HYDRA, and it appeared his interests were beginning to wane a little despite the long years of training.

For now, the Asset stood and pushed his rifle behind him before he climbed down a ladder, they needed to deal with the unconscious stranger down below. The experiment was a failure but the unknown was still considered a threat to their security.

... the Asset wondered if they, too, had felt the blue wanting to take the cold and leave the fire behind in the Asset's skin.

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One day, after being sent off (and left behind) by his newest and final handler, he was going to learn that yes, she had felt it, too.

(warmhandsholdingyoursandsuddenlyit'snotjustthebluebutthepersonnolongerstandingnexttoyou)

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B Ƭ

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Bucky scanned the building with a critical eye. It was 7:42, and it wouldn't be long when the person they were looking for would be home come the eighth hour which left plenty of time to kill for him and the others to properly scope the place.

There was nothing beyond the typical security cameras provided by the establishment, and honestly it was quite poor in the safety department considering how many times this place experienced a bunch of break ins and burglaries with cops taking practically forever to respond to a dispatch call. It bothered him how unsafe this neighborhood was, but he could see the appeal of making this a good hide out. The trick to throwing off her pursuers was not to hide somewhere in the safest and securest place but rather somewhere riddled with crime and danger.

"You sure this is the right place?"

Unfortunately for her, she was still inexperienced in the art of truly disappearing off the grid despite her prudent nature. Fortunately, Bucky and Stark were the ones to have found her first before anyone else did.

"Yeah, it's a pretty small and semi-isolated neighborhood, and it's not too far from the populated areas of the city. She'll squat down in places where the rates in poverty and crime are more than average." he answered as he finished checking the entire perimeter. Then he added, "And plus, it's kind of suspicious how someone who works at a good paying job chooses to live in a dump like this."

The other man could only give a small huff of amusement for the small mistake, but shrugged and commented lightly as he stared down at his phone, "Still. Clever girl."

There was probably a reference somewhere in Stark's words, but like most of the time, it flew right over Bucky's head. That was alright, he mentally shrugged, he had all the time in the world to catch up to the pop culture he had been missing out on for decades. JARVIS, however, had to play as a glorified "parental control monitor"... whatever that meant.

"Anything from JARVIS?" Bucky asked politely, if only to avoid any awkward air that always befell between him and Stark.

"Nothing that we don't already know." Stark replied coolly, putting an end to any further attempts of conversation.

It was hard. Bucky always knew since the very beginning after turning himself in to Stark that it was going to be hard on everyone, especially on the man who had the power to destroy the very weapon that had been used to ruin his life many years ago. Yet somehow, through the anger and hate, Stark chose not to. Months ago, after their first "meeting", if one could call it that, Stark came dangerously close to killing Bucky... but drew enough strength not to finish it.

Apparently, Stark had some amount of time to adjust to the truth. Not a lot but enough for him to not follow through with the temptation.

Besides, Stark wanted names, and he wasn't going to get any answers from a corpse, so Bucky lived to see another day (and so many afterwards that the threat of death faded into nothing).

Before Bucky knew what was happening, he found himself being handled by Ms. Potts who oversaw the process of his rehabilitation by setting up multiple professional doctors and psychologists that were familiar with war veterans and prisoners of war. His case was quite on the extreme level, but it was a challenge the team were willing to take in order to undo all the work HYDRA force feed to him. Decades of torture, discipline, and conditioning were not going to be easy to erase, but it was the first step in the right direction. JARVIS, the AI (not the parasite who hid behind the black screens after his feeble body died), monitored the entire thing and constantly checked on Bucky's progress by asking now and then if the former assassin was alright to proceed or if he would like to stop for the day if it got to be too much.

For a guy who absolutely despised him on a molecular level, Stark really went all out in getting Bucky the best help he could afford with his vast amount of wealth and influence in order for the amnesiac to gain back his autonomy that had been stolen from him for nearly sixty years.

And then there was the curious case of Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes.

Maybe it was the pressure, or maybe it was old habits that didn't really want to die, but for the first few weeks at the beginning of his sessions, Bucky always found himself looking at the older man for directions on how to proceed. Just like how a soldier looked to his superior commanding officer (and it wasn't that far from the truth if Bucky kept his original rank back when he had still been in the army).

Rhodes hadn't taken too well to that discovery, assuming that Bucky was disillusioned into believing that he was still being held under HYDRA's control and that he was seeing a new handler. Rhodes went on a long tirade that Bucky was not a plaything or a weapon, he was his own person and that nobody was looking to use him again, and anyone who thought they could would have to go through a billion dollar suit stacked with weapons which was far more destructive than Stark's armor. It embarrassed him how his actions were misinterpreted, but the Lieutenant Colonel's words melted off a few chips of ice from Bucky's heart.

(youdon'tdeservehim)

The doctors who caught on to Bucky's behavior were quick to dissuade the notion of confusion and explained to the ruffled Air Force pilot that it was actually a coping method. Oddly, his actions were compared to that of a drug addict who was suffering from the symptoms of withdrawal after being dependent on a drug that had been constantly administered to him (aka The Chair), and the former assassin was only looking for another outlet. This was a stepping stone to help kick-start the deprogramming of the Winter Soldier as Bucky, an abused soldier, could learn from Rhodes about the healthy relationship between superior and subordinate, something that had been clearly lacking from the Soviet and HYDRA boot camp.

Rhodes hesitated—until Stark stepped in and told the man to take the job because they were grasping at straws, and they needed all the help they could get in erasing every trace of neo-Nazi influence they could get away with.

And from then on, Rhodes and Bucky spent a lot of time together in relearning the basics of human rights.

Those had been frustrating couple of months afterwards. Bucky knew logically how to be human, but his brain kept tricking his body into thinking that no, in fact, it didn't know how to act like a regular person.

Let it be known that Jim Rhodes had enough practice on patience that it would make a Saint absolutely jealous.

The Air Force pilot never pushed Bucky for more than he could give, neither expecting good or bad results in each session with the doctors, never said a word when Bucky finally lost his temper one day and was allowed to let the entire building know how fucking angry he was (and goddamn did that feel good), would take Bucky with him to the gym, to run along the coastline of the Malibu beaches, and would eventually take Bucky to visit a shooting range ("Hell man, if you wanted to kill me, you would have done that a long time ago with that sick arm of yours.").

Being reintroduced to choices, consent, safety, and privacy turned out to be an eye-opening experience for Bucky as society progressed further from the social norms he had grown up with back in Brooklyn. Outside of sessions, Rhodes and him went through a lot of documentaries pertaining to every movement from race, classism, gender, and sexual orientation just to name a few. Things that had been taboo and hush hush were out in the open for everyone to freely talk about because of the efforts people from before took to boldly put it out there was made possible.

There was still plenty of wrongs to right, some of which were by his doing when HYDRA wanted another outbreak of violence and destruction in order to set acourse to a direction closer to their interests, but Bucky was willing to work for it in order to pay back his dues.

Rhodes gave Bucky a long look before the pilot gave a small huff and took a sip of his beer, shaking his head while mumbling under his breath, "Just what I needed. Another one."

During the entire rehabilitation, Stark had only popped in once in a while, and Bucky figured the guy could barely tolerate his presence for a short period of time. But then Bucky noticed how pale and sickly the man appeared... and the strange patterns peeping beyond the collar of the man's neckline. The former assassin knew from past experience about how a sickly man would dodge his friends by trying to play it cool, diverting the subject to something different (which was always about the Winter Soldier's progress). So when he asked JARVIS what was up, it was like the AI had been waiting to unleash the floodgates if someone simply brought it up!

Tony Stark was dying.

Palladium poisoning it was called. The very source being the thing that was keeping the shrapnel from digging into his heart and killing him. Either way, it was a lose/lose situation and it made everyone feel helpless to do anything because even their resident genius couldn't figure out a cure! That was not what made Ms. Potts and Rhodey lose their shit with the engineer, no, it was the part where Stark was barely concerned about dying because he was too busy gathering intel on all the pies HYDRA dipped its claws into. The former assassin could count how many times on his fingers where he stumbled across a nasty argument brewing between Stark and his two friends, and he was always quick to agree with Happy on going out for some beer and burgers.

Him tattling to the others also got him a lot of passive aggressive attitude from Stark afterwards (but Bucky didn't feel a single shred of regret).

And it was during that uncertainty brewing over Stark's possible demise that a little Black Widow came along.

Normally when a recovering amnesiac was able to spot a familiar face, it should have been seen as a good sign, however when it came to Bucky's case—they were the ones who had history with the Winter Soldier of HYDRA.

Or in this case, from the Red Room.

Needless to say, when he had stepped inside Stark's office, he hadn't expected to come face-to-face with a familiar-looking redhead who was the newly hired PA after Ms. Potts' promotion as Stark Industries' new CEO. What followed after was a discrete but hasty phone call to the custodian's office as every furniture in the office was either overturned or destroyed from getting between Bucky and the deadly Black Widow.

"Hey, Terminator!" Bucky startled a little and found Stark waving a hand (still keeping a distance so Bucky wouldn't grab him on reflex). "You with me?"

"Sorry," Bucky coughed. "I was thinking."

"Whatever. Where's Romanoff?"

Instead of answering, his eyes flicked towards the main office building where he could spot the redhead talking to the landlord, interrogating him without the man even realizing it. It was effortless, the way she got what she wanted which was a bit jarring at times to watch. Black Widows, Bucky recalled vaguely, were not the kind of women anyone ever wanted to get tangled with. And besides her expertise on the mats, with her quick reflexes and flexibility, her true talents lied in her mind games. Planting little seeds of doubt, small words to sway and slither under one's skin, those were the kind of dangers one faced when dealing with the Black Widow as she tangled her victim further into her web.

It caused him to keep the dangerous woman farther than an arm's length away from his personal space because like him, she was just as fast to get into someone's space in order to go in for the kill. And with his terrible sleeping habits, her presence in the building where he was suppose to relax made it all the more difficult for him to find reprieve. He clutched tightly to the knife hidden beneath his pillows, back to the corner of the wall as his eyes stayed on the doorway of his room, waiting and listening for the approach of the poisonous creature with blood red hair and hollow green eyes.

His behavior with the Black Widow, and finding out her true allegiance, made Stark's guard go all the more up in the caution department. She was working for SHIELD, the main mask HYDRA hid behind the scenes under the ironically shadow organization. JARVIS kept an eye out for her, keeping Stark, Bucky, and the others notified of her whereabouts and activities.

Unfortunately, just as they had her, she also had leverage over them: the Winter Soldier standing in the middle of Stark's office.

Bucky wasn't the only person walking on thin ice with the other assassin.

Making a wrong move could result in the entire forces of SHIELD raining down on them if they caught on that one of their top agents was easily compromised within twenty-four hours of entering Stark Industries, thus putting Stark and everyone in the spotlight and in danger. The entire company was a front Tony staged perfectly for everyone and himself in order to move around without suspicion being drawn towards them.

But because of Stark's mistake in revealing himself to the public as Iron Man, his status from a weapons designer and manufacturer to a pilot of a technologically advance suit of armor became a blip in SHIELD's radar. The Black Widow had been sent in to reevaluate him, and Bucky knew that this was SHIELD's (and HYDRA's) way of showing that they wanted Tony Stark recruited into their ranks.

It was quite the compromising position to be in: the Winter Soldier, a ghost story to most intelligence communities, standing in the same room with Tony Stark, a genius that created a weaponized suit and answered to no one but himself.

The Black Widow could undo everything Stark worked his ass off to accomplish; uprooting everything the bastards responsible for messing up and creating the chaotic world it was today. The man was literally edging closer to death's door yet refused to stop because he had no time to be sitting on his ass in a hospital room when he could be doing something productive with the limited time he had left.

(stubbornpunk)

It was like a Mexican stand-off.

Stark had JARVIS collect every data left in the HYDRA files and prepared them to be uploaded in the internet should things turn south. The only reason Stark hadn't originally done so in the first place was because it would have put a lot of innocents in jeopardy. If the files had gone public, sure it would reveal the world the horror that was hiding itself beneath their feet, but it would also paint a lot of people as targets because if there was one thing Bucky knew about HYDRA, it would go down taking others with them. Stark worked hard in separating a lot of files out of the hit list, making sure it was cleaned and clear, but there was so many to go and review through even for a super AI like JARVIS.

It left a sour taste in Bucky's mouth to think about that possible scenario coming into fruition, but if push came to shove, Stark would have no choice but to do it in order to give the world a fighting chance.

The threat of exposure stayed the Black Widow's hands—only because her reaction was most interesting.

"I got the door number." Romanoff announced as she walked out of the office and towards the two men. "C24, on the west wing."

"Lady's first." Stark sarcastically quipped while gesturing towards the nearest flight of stairs.

A nervous breath escaped the former assassin's lips as he followed after the two, hands folded into fists from inside his pockets as he prepared himself for the meeting that he had been waiting for so long.

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Ƭ

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A lot of people knew how tempted Tony sometimes was when it came to challenges. It was like a dare, a gamble, and he was good with reading the outcome of his chances of winning and losing by calculating the math and inputting his skills to level the chances of success. So when there came a point where it was a make it or break it, if he added his chip on the balance, the question was: would it fall to his favor or not? And that's when the dare came.

No bomb threat, no chemical poisoning, no deadly EMP waiting to go off, and no live snake (that had been quite a nasty surprise, thankfully it had been dead before reaching his hands)—yet the searching and scanning yielded no results. JARVIS could not a find a single trace of danger from the innocent-looking cardboard box and the contents inside. And that was what boggled and bothered him so much.

So he sat in the middle of the workshop, eyes glued on the little object that had been the cause of distress for the past twenty-four hours after being urgently informed by his AI that all contact with Pepper and Happy had been lost.

FOR TONY STARK

It was the second time something almost came close to hurting Pepper (and now Happy) because of him. He was starting to regret not keeping his mouth shut at that conference if only to avoid future attempts to hurt him through his closest friends. The reason the truth came out at all was because he had felt spiteful from both that Agent what's-his-face and his salty one-night stand, Christine Everhart.

'Should've stuck to the cards,' Tony sighed heavily.

While he had been attending a meeting of his own with the Board of Directors, the bastards still complaining about the waste of shutting down the weapons industry that got them so much contracts and put money in their fat bank accounts, when JARVIS suddenly alerted him of the situation. Pepper went to New York to start a liaison with a company that focused on green energy while informing a contractor about the plans of establishing a building in Manhattan. But then a suspicious series of black outs occurred, and that's when everything went down hill.

Once the words "Pepper and Happy" and "possibly in danger" came out, Tony was running out the meeting and towards his nearest available suit before ripping through the Californian skies towards the East Coast. Ignoring the dangerous throbbing emitting from his chest, he pushed all the power to his thrusters if only to get to New York a little faster than under a few short hours. Mid-way of reaching his destination, JARVIS was able to reach out to Pepper and Happy's phones and tablets.

Upon arrival, he forced his way through the police that surrounded the entire building in a desperate bid to reach the people that mattered the most. To his great relief, he found them both unharmed.

"Tony," Pepper shakily exhaled, reaching out to him with a faint tremor from her hands (she was a trooper). "We're okay."

After ensuring that they were safe and sound, Tony allowed himself to focus on the situation that nearly caused him to go into cardiac arrest.

Looking a bit closer at the scene all around him, and taking notice of the photos the police gave to him to inspect, he looked at the uniformed men and women like they were telling him a very poor joke.

The hallways were covered with what appeared to be giant webs that could only be caused by freakishly huge-ass spiders from South America. Cobwebs hanging off the walls, ceilings, and littered across the floor that people had to be careful not to step on them lest they lose a shoe. Among the trapped items were firearms, the triggers too sticky for anyone to pull off without accidentally killing someone.

One photo of a disgruntled-looking Happy glaring at the photographer from when the forensic team had arrived was taken, and Tony saw how a thin rope of webs was able to hold a heavy-weight like Happy aloft a couple feet from the ground.

"They just came in, handed the box to Pepper, and left without a word." Happy explained for the nth time, already having gone over this with the police a couple times because even to Tony this was a bit difficult to swallow. "They didn't hurt anyone. It was mostly subduing anybody with a gun or taser. Whoever had a weapon, they got a face full of sticky webs."

Before Tony could move on, Happy grabbed him his wrist and looked imploringly at the billionaire, at the genius, at his long time friend.

"This person, boss... They stood about two or three inches over five feet, but they were strong enough to lift me off the ground with little to no effort, Tony." Happy said in a hushed tone. "They're not normal. It was like I was—it was like I was up against a super human."

With that foreboding exchange, Tony turned his attention towards a police sketch artist who had interviewed several of the witnesses in order to draw a sketch of the person whom everyone described with similar details.

In the drawing was a slim-looking individual wearing a suit that fit them like a second skin. Their upper torso was stark white, and a hood fell over their masked face. The bug-like eyes, Tony found, appeared to be surrounded by a bright red color which looked like it had been sprayed around the white lenses. He also spotted that inside the hoodie was the same shade of bright red with neon blue spider web patterns included. There was a similar pattern found on the inner parts of the arms. Then his dark eyes were drawn immediately to a black emblem sketched on the chest of the assailant—a spider. The lower half of the suit was all black, sans the thin strips of white from each side of their hip. And on their feet was the same shade of neon blue, looking a bit bulbous at the tip that Tony figured they must be Crocs or something.

Two things ran through Tony's mind after he took in the entire portrait; one, the sketch artist had talent because this was the most aesthetic-looking piece of art Tony had ever seen, and two, who the hell ran around in a costume that looked like it came straight out of the Halloween department store?

And as the report concluded, the costumed maniac who had scared the crap out of Pepper, ran off as soon as the package had been dropped in the wary ginger's hands. The person leaping out the window from the fifteenth floor, disappearing to who knew where. When the police came, they ordered that Pepper remained still while a bomb squad carefully removed the box from her hands while trying to dismantle would could possibly have been a ticking explosive that could have gone off at the slightest movement.

What they found inside was nothing of the sort.

"Two USB's." the police officer who was keeping the contents held one USB carefully for Tony to see a note attached to its side with two words the left the billionaire bewildered.

I'm sorry

'Yeah, well, you're going to be sorry once I find you, asshole.' Tony glared at the note.

"And this thing, too," the officer added as he pulled out a vellum paper.

On one side of the paper, there was a sketching of a logo he thought he might have seen from somewhere but couldn't remember. He'd probably have to get JARVIS to check it out properly. But then his attention to the paper doubled when the officer lifted the thin note to reveal another image printed on the other side which bleed through the eagle logo thanks to the sunlight illuminating it.

A familiar red skull with tentacles was glaring right back into Tony's face.

Tony stared at it for the longest time, blinking and letting the color red bleed itself into the retina of his eyes the longer he stared hard at the image.

Nobody but history buffs and ancient people remembered a lot about the war that took place near the middle of the twentieth century, but those that actually listened through the monotone voices of their history teachers in high school could remember the whole propaganda reels, and Captain America leading the Allies towards victory. Tony didn't have much of a hard time in his (unnecessary) history courses considering his father practically branded his brain with words and memorabilia about the moron who ran around wearing the American flag as his uniform. And just like any kid who grew up around adults that were all for the moron running around with the American flag as his uniform, Tony was familiar with HYDRA and the tyrannical Red Skull.

Normally, when someone left a message that had to do with an organization that threw more shade than the Third Reich, anyone would be worried. However, for Tony, he instead was left bamboozled.

It was weird enough that Pepper and Happy were met by some freak in a mask, but then they leave behind two USB's (one with a pathetic apology note) with a cryptic calling card with two logos.

'Jinkies,' Tony blinked as he stared at the box and items from within the safe confines of his workshop (after a lot of convincing on his part to walk away with the evidence from police custody).

This all strangely enough, to him, felt... personal.

The vellum card appeared to be some sort of metaphor, it's purpose implying a clue to this whole message: two sides of the same coin. HYDRA and the yet to be identified organization that were back-to-back with one another, and there was an uneasy feeling steadily dropping from inside his stomach. This message was stirring up more questions than it was giving answers, and Tony wanted nothing more than to get to the bottom of it if only to find the answers of why this weirdo was so eager for him to receive this.

He was a bit hesitant with the USB's because they could possibly trigger an EMP or unleash a deadly virus from within JARVIS' mainframe to shut him down completely. Since police equipment was unreliable, Tony had JARVIS and the two bots DUM-E and U scan for anything that looked remotely threatening. Still, there was nothing, and there was no way to know if he went ahead and plugged those in.

A lot of people accused him of being arrogant, and most of the time they were right, but Tony was always careful when it came to managing things on the digital/technical side.

With every investigation resulting in no signs of danger, Tony was left with the decision if he should or shouldn't. JARVIS may be a powerful program, but Tony wasn't stupid enough to actually put his AI at risk; it was like sending a man wearing blindfolds into a landscape infested with minefields.

Still, Tony thought as he glared at the USB with the note taped to its side, somebody was daring him to look and see.

"Alright," he sighed heavily, swiping the USB off the table and turning to a nearby plug, making sure to disconnect everything from JARVIS' servers. "I'll bite."

"Are you positive about this, Sir?" JARVIS asked, sounding both weary and tired.

Seeing the icon of the USB pop up on the screen of a holographic screen, he clicked on it to open up the file.

"Let's see what sort of surprise you have for me, Itsy Bitsy."

.

.

.

He barely reached the nearest trash can to heave all the food he had for dinner. His ears ringing like a broken record of her sweet voice before it was strangled silent, eyes burning at the images when he was crushed, and his heart threatening to kill him again from the sight of a ghost that took everything from him that one winter night.

And now—now he knew why that person left them an apology note.

(helookedhesawandheSCREAMED)

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ഢҼb oҒ أӣҭԻأᏩմҼ

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