“At any rate, if any of this leaks, my child might be subject to horrific, unethical experimentation or I might be expected to… provide other children to substitute for my baby. But I'm fairly confident that if you all keep your mouths shut, we won't have any other problems," I said to a room full of medical personnel whose eyes had grown wide as saucers at the sob story that I had told them of the illegal experimentation I had undergone that had transformed my brain and the tragic pain it had brought me.

There had been tears, but I figured it was better than killing everyone. I wasn't sure I had the stomach to kill my wife's doctors and killing everyone would have hung a giant target around Andromeda and the baby's necks, from the other Heads if not from the U.S. government, and I didn't want that.

Andromeda walked over to me. She was still in ridiculously good shape, which was sort of unfair when you thought about it, and slipped under my arm and I kissed her head. "Please tell no one about any of this," I said sternly and the doctors and nurses nodded their heads in unison.

We walked out together out to the car and got in, I got into the driver's seat. I was actually part of a minority of people in Los Angeles who had rejected the Nemo fleet's rising dominance, taking control of the roads and making them clean and efficient beneath their will. It made me safer too, since those cars were so much better drivers. But I mostly wanted to live in a car that wasn't feeding information into SWORD's master feed.

"That was… scary," I said after a moment.

"It was," Andromeda agreed. "I hadn't been expecting your, you know, to come up. I'm sorry, I should have thought of it."

I shook my head, "It's not your responsibility. And we wouldn't have risked inadequate medical care to dodge any risks, that's just a new risk."

"It's amazing that he's going to have your brain," Andromeda said. I smiled. Andromeda was much happier about the ongoing situation than I was.

Don't get me wrong, I was happy. I liked that we were having a baby, I liked that the baby was going to be preternaturally smart, maybe I could speak with the child in sign language in a year. Good Lord, I could speak, with my child. It was such a humbling thought. A real live human being was growing in my wife's belly and I felt humbled and honored and horrified at the fact. My baby.

But over it all hung the long shadow of Hydra, of its thousand heads, and of the future it promised. A world ordered, if we were lucky, by my vision for Hydra. A narrow elite, collected from cells across the world, ruling over mankind. Bread and circuses, peace and security. The everlasting city and it's everlasting tendrils, the city of man, my dominion. I don't enjoy the prospect of global, elite rule. But it wasn't like this world had proved itself able to take care of itself.

"Do you ever think about," I asked hesitantly, "Running away? From all this? From this life and its… responsibilities?"

"Not really. This is great! You're on the way to being the top head of Hydra, SWORD is about the most powerful extra governmental organization in the world, and we're going to have a baby. What's not to love?"

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I smiled weakly and stared at the road ahead of me. Andromeda had always loved me, but she had also always loved the promise of Michael Trent, the master of Hydra. There would be no ducking out to a next door world and settling as a happy married couple, living off the income from the Extremis formula or the wireless power transmitters or any of the other ways I could become a billionaire with tech friends and willingness to rat out alternate timeline Hydras. No, if I wanted to pursue some other destiny, I should have fallen in love with someone else. My last exit from this life was a long time ago, there was no point regretting it. The little baby kicking my wife's belly was my destiny now, the life I was giving him would be either as the heir of Hydra's most powerful head or an orphan and experiment subject. There weren't a lot of other options left.

"Nothing, I guess." I reached over with one hand and squeezed hers. "I'm happy to be here with you. Strucker is angry about the two guinea pigs for the super soldiers causing problems in his background, so I may have to deal with that soon. Hopefully they'll let me be here for the birth."

"That's great!" Andromeda said excitedly, "You wipe out his opponents and his opposition to your ascension will be completely illegitimated."

But I didn't want to kill the Maximoff twins. I didn't want to kill people! I joined Hydra because I wanted power, but I hadn't wanted to use it to hurt people. I had put out of my mind too many bodies - Hank Pym, Nicole Arden. I had delivered the most effective defense force I could - Rapid fire response teams that could go anywhere in the world by the thousands, with burning hands and singularity grenades. I was still working on making the suits be able to be donned or removed in a few moments, like the Panther suit and the time travel suits in the movies, but it was hard and that kind of nano-technology was genuinely complicated and frankly just a pain in the ass to design at the present tech level.

Now my baby was going to have two serial killers for parents.

Yeah, that was great, it was fine. I'm sure it would be fine. (I was not sure it would be fine)

"Well, I'd like to be at home for the baby's birth, at least."

"I'd like that too, dear. But what's important is the work you're doing. If you succeed, our child will grow up in a world where there is plenty and peace for everyone. Clean air, bright skies, and a beautiful future where he will be the heir to the ruler of the world and the greatest person that he can be."

But he wouldn't be able to be who he wanted to be. Not in Hydra. I didn't sigh. I had chosen this life. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of the peace and prosperity that I had promised everyone. I was going to make the world safe, both internally and externally. There would have to be sacrifices.

"You're right dear. Of course you're right. I'm just nervous about being a father, is all."

"You'll be a great father, Mike. To this baby and to the whole world."