Things kept getting worse and worse in our subordinate nations – Salcedo was arrested by a Revolutionary Front, Jalal was nearly killed by a mob and had fled to Russia. And then it was Labor Day and all hell broke loose and I stopped worrying about the other nations at all.

The first day of the Labor Day strike was worse than I had expected and I hadn't exactly expected it to be good. The marches were millions strong, filling the cities, and I was trying to coordinate responses without people absolutely losing their shit. Everybody stay calm, no need for a fuss.

That was the idea, anyway.

But the next day, there were even more marchers and strikers and all the cities in America were turning into carnivals of Anti-Trent, Anti-Martial Law, Anti-Hydra sentiment. Businesses were letting their employees off, some of them were even still paying wages – Including Stark Industries, goddamnit, which was also making huge donations to hardship funds.

"I don't think your 'let them air out their grievances' approach is working," Stern said, his tone as dry as the words themselves while he lounged on an oval office couch.

I looked over at him and hated him, "You let a man air his grievances, he likes you more, you beat the shit out of him, he likes you less. This is a very basic dynamic."

"If people don't fear the government, the government can't do anything at all. It's getting worse," Stern said, "desertions in the military, firms funneling money to the protestors, you have to put a stop to it or you won't rule this country at all, even if you still get to sit in that chair."

I grimaced at that thought. He was right about that too – Legitimacy was slipping away from me far faster than I could stitch it back together. I needed to prove I had the strength to do it. And Konstantin had successfully suppressed his first mass resistance, so it shouldn't have been impossible.

But the whole movement was so damn big and there was only so much I could do. Still, I supposed there wasn't much of a cost in doing it. I should try, at least, to put down this rebellion by what force I could manage. I called up the military officers we still had under total control. I called up Director Jacobs, the man I had given new life and a new body, and gave him the order.

The velvet gloves were going to come off and they were going to face the iron fist.

----

Dillon was on the front line, trying to talk to the military officers and convince them to stop supporting the fascist coup regime. "You don't have to do this, man," he said as the shield wall advanced toward him, "you can stop. Turn around. Fuck this invading American soil bullshit. This isn't legal, it's not right, you know that." Dillon was starting to lose his nerve but he kept insisting to himself he had to stand there and try to convince them. Showing the enemy his back was a mistake and allowing the soldiers to think he was a coward wasn't going to help either.

But the shield wall kept advancing toward the front of the protest and pressing into them, launching tear gas grenades and whipping out batons. Tear gas fucking sucked, it was so damn painful, it hurt so bad, he was choking now and he started to stumble away. His will had left him, he was trying to get out, someone stopped and tucked under his arm to help him out, some middle aged dude with a bandana over his face, carrying him toward the edge.

Dillon expected they would make it out together, but then the man fell down with an awful ripping sound. Dillon dropped to his knees, checking on the man's body, trying to get under the tear gas. Did tear gas fall or rise? He didn't know, but he fought off the urge to run long enough to look over the dude and see that he was dead.

Fuck Trent. Fuck Hydra. Fuck these guys.

----

The second evening was absolutely a bloody mess – We sent huge forces down to the various cities, clearing the streets with anti-grav tanks and tear gas and batons. They cleared the streets and started patrolling in place of the local police, which were proving increasingly unreliable. We used Project Insight to target civilian leaders and put bullets through them as they fled, criminals labeled under the war powers act I had received for the civil war. We put a total media blackout and batted down Jarvis' attempts to turn it back on again.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Andromeda said on the phone, in our house under heavy guard with Persephone and Pericles. The White House was marginally more secure, but it was also a political symbol and it didn't have a Lilypad Time Machine in the basement. I hadn't told Andromeda about it, that was on a dead man's switch, but it was there – If something happened to me, they could get out. "They've seen you mean business now."

I smiled to myself and let myself for a moment believe that I had proved my point.

It was only a few hours later that I got a call from Stacey Yorkes.

"You son of a bitch," Stacey said, her voice quaking with fury.

I had expected that Stacey would not approve of my actions, "Stacey, calm down. We're just trying to restore some peace and order. It's only temporary."

"Gert's hurt," Stacey said. "Unconscious. Bleeding from the head. They say they won't release any Extremis to any protestors." well – ah – shit. I mean, I had known she was going to be out there and obviously, Extremis would go to military personnel first. I had just hoped she wouldn't be one of the people getting bludgeoned or shot.

"Stacey," I said slowly, "tell me what hospital Gert is at and I will get ahold of the Extremis myself"

Stacey gave me the number and I said, "I will address this immediately. I'm so sorry."

I got into my ship and flew to the other side of the country to be there as quickly as I could, trying to outrace the coming dawn.

---

A few hours later, the whole PRIDE arrived at the perimeter around my house, the early sunlight exposing tens of thousands of protestors across the city. Several of the PRIDE were super-soldiers, so that was awkward for my secret service detail. I got on a phone to tell the guards to let them in.

The eight of them shuffled inside. They looked bad, Stacey and Dale especially looked thoroughly wrung out – Which made sense, if it had been Persephone, I'd have freaked too. I was flanked by my ever present Firefly bodyguards. "Hello," I said, doing my best to look grave and serious. "Did Gert get the Extremis?" The Yorkes nodded and I let out a sigh of relief. "That's good."

Victor stepped forward to speak for the group. He was dressed in an abnormally casual fashion, just a t-shirt and running pants like he had thrown on his clothes without thinking about it. "Mike, you have to stop this."

I sighed, "Until the unrest comes to an end, we're not going to be able to stop this. I have a duty to secure this country."

"Have you always been this full of shit? Did we never notice before or is this new?" Stacey said. Dale grabbed her arm.

Victor looked over at Stacey, his eyes narrowing into a glare. In truth, they had just never noticed before, Stacey was right to ask. "What Stacey is trying to say," Victor said, carefully, "is that this crackdown was a severe overreaction to the attempted SHIELD putsch and it's time to put a stop to it."

I looked back at them – After Tony, I had hoped it wouldn't come to this. "Don't tell me you believe this Hydra smear job."

"Of course not," Victor said, waving his hand dismissively. "But I think that you might have overreacted. We know you came from a world that fared substantially worse than ours has, we appreciate that. We're here as your friends. Stop this."

I flexed my hand and resisted the urge to shout, "I'll take your advice into consideration."

"You told me that my son was going to grow up to be a hero," Victor said, looking me in the eye. "Was that true?"

Oh. "Yes," I said. There was no good in saying I was lying at this point, it would only make this situation even worse. It might even convince them that the Hydra story was true and that would really ruin everything between us all forever.

"All our kids came to us and told us we had to stop this and we couldn't let it go on," Victor said.

Well, that made sense. The Runaways were Heroes and of course they would oppose me even if I was their cool uncle. "I appreciate their input too," I said sincerely. Nothing but respect for such convictions. I remembered when I had them.

Stacey practically spat, "But you're not going to do anything about it." Man, she was really angry.

Victor flicked his eyes towards her, "Stacey, we agreed I would talk to him."

"He's just going to nod his head seriously and go back to beating and gassing kids," Stacey said.

I felt a tension build in my chest, "You know I'm still here Stacey."

"Yeah, Mike, I'm just not sure you realize that we're here too."

"Of course I realize you're here," I said, struggling to grasp for whatever argument I was supposed to be making right now. These were parents who were here for their kids, who I also liked and enjoyed, who were basically cousins to my daughter. "I understand a lot of things. It's complicated and if you knew what I knew, you'd know why I have to do what I do."

"You know, when things get so complicated that you can't explain them to your best friends, you should maybe stop. You've been so much different since Tony."

Fuck off about Tony. "Shut up." I said, looking at them all. "Go home. I've tried to be civil because we're friends, but I think you have all forgotten that you belong to me. I've tried to be polite, but I don't think your kids would much appreciate having their parents thrown away for murder. Get out of here."

The whole of the PRIDE stiffened up. I hadn't mentioned the tapes in half a decade. We were friends, our relationships were all mutually beneficial. I had done real damage to our friendships with those words. But shocked and cowed, the PRIDE murmured assent before they turned around and left the room. Stupid self-righteous child serial killers.

I was aching now when I saw that I was getting a call from Jacobs, the Director of SWORD.

Standing in my kitchen, my head still spinning from the confrontation with the Pride was not exactly the best state for a phone call wherein I was expected to navigate and pilot the fate of the whole world. Why had I decided it would be a good idea to rule the world? It was definitely a lot of trouble to not be able to take the night off, to get clear and think.

"They're laying siege to the New White House. Almost a hundred thousand civilians have marched down to the building's gates, chanting and waving flags," Jacobs said, his voice steady and easy. As if he wasn't talking about the potential end of it all for us. "Do you want me to pull the trigger on the helicarriers, clear them out?" Ah, that was why, he was too stupid. I had surrounded myself by violent, bloody handed men who didn't understand you can't kill your way out of every problem.

"No," I said, keeping the frustration out of my voice. "I think that's how we wound up in this situation in the first place."

Things had gotten worse after the clearing in Los Angeles. Of course they had gotten worse. I hadn't had many options when I gave the order but it had not worked out great for us at any rate. I didn't have a lot of options now either – I had to go to the Triskelion to manage the Helicarrier fleet and make sure no idiot decided to pull the trigger. That would only make things worse.

"Sir, we need to take decisive action. Our power rests on their fear of us."

How far we had fallen from mankind's united cause. Nobody was thankful for the gifts of plenty and peace, it was only ever on their lips, 'give us liberty.' I guess I couldn't blame them – I'd started all this rich when I arrived in this universe, rich enough to never need to work a day in my life. I hadn't been satisfied with that – Why would they be?

"Just do't pull the trigger till I get there," I said, on the verge of losing my cool again. I had done that once and that was enough for the night.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Yes sir," he said, not sounding at all convinced.

"Tell your subordinates that you will be busy for the rest of the night in your office," I ordered, flicking on a screen to watch him obey.

He didn't look comfortable, but he glanced at the cameras I had in his office and sighed, pressed a buzzer and gave them the same orders

"Antiphones sings old songs, but we all forget them" I said, activating an old safe code. The command phrase was an override I had designed to stop him from issuing any orders without my permission, all it really did was lock him in place for twelve hours – Since a talking, chattering SWORD director would be able to give orders and if I had been mind-hijacked, that would've been catastrophic.

Then I hung up the phone and went out into the living room where Andromeda and the children were sitting. Andromeda was in a bathrobe and the kids were in their jammies, not really sleeping. Who could sleep tonight.

"I'm going to have to head to the White House," I said.

I looked over my family. My joy. The only thing I had left. I didn't want to leave them. Persephone was barely five. If I died, or went to jail, they would never know their father. Even Persephone's excellent memory would probably fail her. Only our powers would get in the way.

"Daddy, are you gonna get hurt like Gert?" Persephone asked. Persephone knew that we couldn't take the Extremis formula, so she was really asking if I was going to die.

I tried to quell my flinch, but Persephone was nearly as perceptive as I was. "I'm going to do my best not to, honey."

"Why does everybody I love have to risk dying? Why did Tony have to die?"

I shook my head back and forth, "Everybody has to do what they think needs to be done. Sometimes, that isn't safe or fun, sometimes we don't agree, but we have to do it."

I wondered after I said it what I was talking about it. Was I talking about crushing my enemies beneath my feet? Maybe I was. It was on the list of things I would do if I had to do it. Maybe I was talking abut giving up so I didn't have to bury any more of my friends, come what may.

"You're really scared," Persephone said, "Do you want a hug?"

"God, yes," I said, holding my arms out to her. She embraced me. "You take care of Pericles, okay?" I hated myself for saying it. She was a kid. But if this ended badly for us, it would be up to her regardless.

"Okay," she said, holding me tight. "I love you Daddy."

"I love you too, Persephone."

Andromeda grabbed my hand and took me to another room, where one of our white boards was still sitting on a desk.

You're blaming yourself. Andromeda wrote in her looping handwriting. She had decided on a softer tact after last time, I guess. Sensible, I might have tried something stupid if she did.

Gert is my fault and I started this, I wrote in my caligraphic hand.

This isn't even like Tony, she's not dead, no permanent harm done.

I looked at my wife, a beautiful, Amazonian woman – My good right hand. I loved Andromeda. She was talking about one of our friends, she was talking about our daughter's oldest friend, the girl who'd babysat for us. The one who'd said, 'When a woman asks you to marry them, you're supposed to say yes.' And she was saying it didn't matter that I got her hurt, when it definitely was my fault. I had given the order.

We were fucked up people. It was easy to dissociate when it was some random tax attorney, when it was Hank Pym trying to ruin my plans for humanity. It had been harder with Wanda and Pietro. But I had gotten used to killing. I had gotten distant from it. The blood on my hands was just the soap and the water of my daily life. Andromeda had too, so much younger, so much less at fault than I had. I reached over and touched her face. She could've been a better, more decent person in a better, more decent world.

I'll deal with it, I wrote back and I headed out onto the front porch. I wasn't at all sure how I was going to deal with it.

The perfect winter evening of California was not a comfort. I stepped onto the new Airforce One spaceship, ordered it back to the White House, and stepped into the corridor and watched the earth fade away into the distance. I took the time to catch a wink of sleep and enjoy that my signal went dead on my phone. I was so tired. The ride wasn't that long and soon enough my phone came back into service, there was a message on it from Victor.

----

"Mike," Victor's voice said on the recording, "We want you to know… We're going out there. We can't do this any more. You can publish your damn tapes if you want. SWORD has to be stopped."

It was just a message. But I had listened to it a few times. I had listened to it a lot of times. I sat in the oval office, listening to it on repeat. They had followed their children into the mass of protestors right as I had been losing my grip on the Hydra heads. My secret service agents were looking at me funny, saying nothing.

I put my phone down and pulled up the holoprojector. What remained of Hydra's heads was on the end of the line. With Garrett dead, Jacobs was paralyzed in his room, Jalal was on the run and thus stripped of post, and President Salcedo imprisoned, that left Konstantin, Durrani, the Baroness, the Swiss Banker, Malick, Whitehall, and Stern. I hated all of them. Which, in hindsight, was probably a sign that I should've done something else with my life. There were a lot of ways out that I had ignored along the way.

"What is our situation?"

"The repression shots aren't working," Durrani said, "We need to use greater force, go full hog on Project Insight."

That set heads to bobbing, agreement all around.

"You're talking about killing millions of people," I said. "We need to consider other options."

"What other options are there?" Whitehall said, his voice calm as if discussing the weather. "If we don't want to end up like Hadir, we need to kill them before they kill us."

"I'm not seeing many other options myself," Stern said, tightening his tie anxiously. "They're calling me the new Patain, I don't see a future for me in that, so I too would like to endorse killing before being killed."

I had the switch at my fingertips. At my command, I could set our helicarriers to destroy the rebel forces. I could bring an end to all of my enemies in one fell swoop. Nothing would stop me from doing this, nothing could stop me from doing this.

I could hear the rioters outside of the White House.

I had worked so hard for this and it had all… just slipped away. Six months and the international system that had been the dream of Hydra from its birth had frayed to incomprehensibility. The governments of Earth had crumbled beneath the weight of the first Helicarrier assault, then it had been easy enough to pen the assault of Phil Coulson and his rebels. A new, global government – A golden dream broken down.

They were massed around the barriers, they were screaming and yelling. I could put bullets through them all. I could make an end of them all. But I couldn't make an end of their ideas, I had tried that last night and I had only hurt my friends and my cause. People were even angrier now as they woke up to a world where the government terrorized them than they had been before.

It had, in the end, been a fatal mistake to think that I could rule the world through terror and deceit. I should've taken my laurels with Thanos and let it go. The man of foresight, of vision, had perished in the public eye. Grant Ward had proven everything I had said was a lie, proven everything we had done since the invasion was a lie.

I could see them press against the military forces that were still loyal, which was a lot less than it had been three days ago. We weren't going to hold onto even these soldiers forever.

Ruling the world hadn't worked.

I could continue to deny that fact or I could adapt to it.

I looked at the other faces on my screen – The baroness, the banker, the Sheikh, the Old Bear. Nobody knew exactly who we were, which world leaders belonged to us. We could make a go of it again – We could fade into the black, try to start over.

"We can still win this," Konstantin said, his face determined. "We have only to throw the switch on Project Insight, victory will be in sight. You know what you must do, Michael. It is time that you do it."

The problem with this plan was that I would have to kill my friends for, at best, a few more weeks or months of rule. I nodded my head as if I agreed with Konstantin, as if he had anything useful to say. "Konstantin, give me twelve hours. I believe that I can still win this for us. Just give me twelve hours and remember, whatever you see, whatever you hear, do not doubt. It is all a part of plan."

Konstantin hesitated but, with the exception of this latest clusterfuck, I had always been right so far.

But I could hear the rioters outside. Hydra's day had come and gone in an instant. I had been, in truth, their last and perhaps only real chance – And I had failed. To rule the world by force of arms, to hold a gun to its head, we had tried. We had failed. It made no sense to try to beat them to death now. There is a limit to every rule, an end to every dictator.

If you know how the prior empires ended, you knew how this would end too.

Sooner or later, you had to run off with the family gold. I called my wife.

"Mike," Andromeda said, "What the hell is happening?

"Andromeda," I said, my voice shaking, "I love you. I want you to know that. I love you, okay?"

"Mike, what are you talking about? Throw the switch, we can still win this."

God, even to the very end. I had been a fool. Love had made a fool of me. "I have… I have a better plan. But it's chancy. I just want you to know, if it doesn't work, I love you. I love Persephone and Pericles."

"I love you too, Mike. We're going to beat them."

"Goodbye, Drama," I said, reaching back to the nickname I had stopped calling her so long ago.

"Goodbye Mike," she said, her voice tinged with fear.

I pulled up my command codes and started killing my deadman switches, one by one. Then, for once in my damn life, I did the right thing. I picked up my phone and called down to the guards on the frontline.

"Tell them that Michael Trent wants to speak with Captain America."

-

Fifteen minutes later, the door of my office came open and Grant Ward and a collection of men in the Patriot masks came in. There were limits to the amount of blood I was willing to shed. Or at least, whose blood I was willing to shed.

"Don't think this makes you a good man," I said to him as I held out my hands for him to arrest me.

"Same to you," he said, latching a pair of handcuffs onto my hands. Then he patted me down and stripped me. I cooperated until he grabbed me and held my head over a trashcan.

"Is this necessary?" I asked.

"Have you ever seen your contingency planning?" Ward said. I relaxed and accepted it. Besides – Ward was effectively made of vibranium. He pulled my jaw open and forced me to vomit by igniting my gag reflex. I still made the mistake of reflexively biting down. I yelped in pain as my teeth bit against the vibranium, but Ward didn't break them on purpose. Nice of him really. They handed me spare clothes from a bag, I guess if someone had needed to flee the scene? I don't know why they had them. Maybe they'd been hoping to capture me all along.

He lifted me back up and walked me to the lobby of the new White House.

At the foot of the door stood Captain America. Technically, he hadn't had that title for years – But I still thought of him by it nonetheless.

"I want to talk peace."

"Sure you can do that?" he asked

"I'm the Chief Head of Hydra," I said, "I'm the only one who can."