Chapter 345: Light the Flames
20th May 2013, Avengers Tower, New York City
(Tony Stark POV)
The man simply turned away and left the building. This was bad, this was really, really, bad. With that thought, Tony remembered a conversation he had with the Morrigan. She still scared the shit out of him, but she had warned him about the governments of the world seeking to take control over the Enhanced population. He had dismissed it as a conspiracy theory. He was regretting that now.
She was right and now Tony had to deal with it. The woman had told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn't going to intervene anymore in the matter, but he had to ask for her help. Reed Richards as part of the beloved superhero team, the Fantastic Four, would be supporting them, giving the Accords legitimacy, and making young fools that idolize him and have powers support the Accords as well, unknowingly chaining themselves for the government to take care of.
He needed help, he needed advice, and he needed it as soon as possible. There was only one person who had foreseen this, "Jarvis, please call Jasmine Sayre. Tell her that it's urgent."
After being told multiple times that Jasmine Sayre was away by her assistant, Alfred, – something that was weird since she could teleport. Alas, Tony could not get into contact with the witch, and he was too restless to wait for her to help him.
The woman had told him that she wouldn't help him anyway, that he was on his own. And it was Tony's fault that he didn't listen to her warnings. Now, he was screwed, and he needed his team's help, "Jarvis, send the team a message to come as soon as possible. Tell them that it's an emergency."
Honestly, Tony had no idea how to broach the subject to his teammates. How is he going to tell them that the people that they had almost died saving, are doing their best to repress them as much as possible. The world had taken the Avengers' sacrifices and spat on them for no reason.
Sure, they had a point, but not to make things this drastic. The incidents that they're using to justify the accords were not the fault of the Enhanced. Most casualties happened because of extra-terrestrial issues, and they were contained by the Avengers or other Enhanced quickly enough. Sayre knew about the Greenwich attack, but said that it was uncertain to happen at all. And she was right, the space portal was consistent with many gravitational anomalies that were discovered by Jane Foster, who had sent him her findings when he asked her.
Even then, the ship happened to be contained as quickly as possible by Sayre's agents, making the casualty count as low as possible. Unfortunately, it was enough for people to start a fear campaign on Enhanced people on general, and it was working. Even though mutants have practically disappeared by now, people still feared them for some reason.
Half an hour later, the entire team was there, including Rhodey, and Sam Wilson, some military veteran in the Falcon project that used to run with Steve Rogers. Thor was missing, but that wasn't really a surprise since he was back at Asgard, but other than him and the Morrigan, everyone was there.
While the billionaire was thinking about how to broach the issue, Natasha decided to speak up, "What's going on, Tony? Why are we all here?"
"We have a problem," Tony simply answered.
Everyone straightened up and Cap immediately went to soldier mode, "Who are we fighting?"
"Everyone, that's the problem," at their questioning look, he continued, "An hour ago, I was visited by Reed Richards who had some very concerning news. He gave me a document, the Enhanced Registration Act. It's a bill that's getting ratified by the UN in the next week. It is without a doubt the single most repressive and constrained proposal I have ever read, coming very close to slavery, and we're all affected by it. Secretary Thaddeus Ross is representing the United States when it relates to the Accords, which once signed, would make the crap he did to Banner to be legal, and he would be able to do the same for anyone with any kind of powers."
The entire room fell silent and Tony would have been able to hear a pin drop, "What the hell, Tony!" Rhodey exclaimed.
Everyone started to try to yell, and the Billionaire just raised his hand causing them to fall silent, "Look, I know you want to know more. I printed each of you a copy of the Accords, a brief summary if you don't want to read all of it, and what I found when I researched things slightly more. Read what you want, and when you will, and then we'll talk. We need to make an informed decision as a team."
Tony passed each of them a folder containing the necessary documents, and everyone started reading. It didn't take long for people to get through them; the other members of the Avengers were quite smart. Rogers' super soldier serum had also enhanced his mind, Rhodey and Wilson worked for the military, which actually involved more paperwork than shooting people, the former SHIELD agents were familiar enough with this kind of documents as well. As for Banner, well, he was a certified genius with too many doctorates.
"This is insane," Banner murmured.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Tony answered, "Unfortunately, Reed Richards and the rest of his team support it."
"They agreed with this crap? Yeah, it's the UN and everything, but politicians are also politicians. How long is it gonna be before they LoJack us like a bunch of common criminals?" Wilson protested.
"117 countries want to sign this. 117, Sam, that means something, Sam." Rhodey protested.
"You're all missing the point. Reed isn't supporting it because he likes it, but because he thinks he has to. He's planning on signing the Accords and slowly pressuring them to amend it, to make it at least not violate human rights." Tony explained.
Surprisingly Banner seemed in favor of the Accords and spoke up, "Look, he may have a point, and the Accords do look very extreme, but ever since people with powers started appearing, challengers followed them. Some oversight might not be a bad idea. Making the use of superpowers against the law and making it so only people that have signed the Accords could use them, and only fight crimes with permission from the UN are not a bad idea. It would stop anyone with powers from getting hurt fighting crime or something, and it would give the Avengers credibility to the whole world."
Rogers protested, "And at what cost? We tried before with SHIELD and look what happened to it. The UN disbanded the entire organization. Are we going to let them do the same to us?"
"Look, Steve, I'm not going to support the Accords, believe me, but the thing with SHIELD is a lot more complicated than you think. What happened was for the best." Tony replied calmly.
"For the best? Tony, SHIELD was the only one fighting the good fight, trying to get to the darkest places and shed some light. You can't think that what happened to them was just."
Tony sighed. He didn't want to get to the SHIELD stuff, but he had no choice there, "SHIELD was compromised. Almost half the organization was loyal to another one. SHIELD was going to fall anyway, what happened was because the other organization needed to fall with it."
The entire room fell silent, and Romanoff commented with a dry tone, "So that's why she did it, huh?"
Tony looked at her and continued, "Yes, it was part of a plan the both of us hatched. It started with something called operation Paperclip. Hundreds of Nazi scientists were pardoned and brought to the US after the second World War. A few were able to get into SHIELD including one Arnim Zola. Slowly, a new Hydra was hatched from inside of SHIELD, until it made up almost half the population. The original plan was to slowly whittle them down and keep SHIELD intact. Unfortunately, the Hydra higher ups tried to kill the Morrigan's civilian identity, and she responded in kind. Fury tried to arrest her because of it, so she just gave up on saving SHIELD and dismantled the entire organization for full measure. Hydra did a lot of bad things, including killing my parents. I'm not kidding, I saw the video myself from one of their archives. This is what happened to SHIELD, so please just shut up about it, because it's gone and it has nothing to do with this conversation."
Cap's face paled at what he heard, and Natasha chose to change the subject slightly, "Back to the issue at hand, we need to make a decision about what to decide. Do we follow Richards or do we fight with it?"
Clint who had been silent this far spoke up, "Yeah, I'm out."
Everyone looked at Clint with shock on their faces, "Look, I'm just a guy with a bow and arrow. I have a family that I need to take care off. I love you all, but not enough to risk upsetting the government and risking my family for you. I have been thinking about it for a while, and I have enough saved up to retire properly. I am officially resigning from the Avengers. If you somehow manage the solve this mess, then let me know, other than that, I'm out."
"Clint," Natasha protested.
"I have to do this, Nat. For Laura and the kids…" he calmly answered.
Everyone nodded, accepting his decision, but unhappy to lose him, and after a few goodbyes, he left the tower.
Banner was the one who started, "Look, we still need to make a decision."
"What about the Morrigan," Natasha asked, "what does she think about this?"
"She knew about it, warned me even, but I thought that she was just paranoid. I'm ashamed to say that I ignored her advice, and now we're all paying for it. I still can't get hold of her, apparently, she's been away since that mess in Greenwich. It had something to do with Thor, I believe. I'm not really sure to be honest." The billionaire answered back.
Steve asked, "If we sign this, we surrender our right to choose. What if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go? What if there is somewhere we need to go, and they don't let us? We may not be perfect, but the safest hands are still our own."
Rhodey sighed in exasperation, "If we don't sign it, then we're not allowed to interfere at all without being labeled criminals and being arrested. The Accords are horrible, sure, but they will go through, and you know it. They played it well, and they won. We need to decide on the consequences of the signing. Either we play by the rules and submit to their oversight, or we become fugitives for helping people. I'm leaning towards the first one. I'm with Reed with this. We need to join them and try to influence amends in the Accords over the years."
Natasha nodded in agreement, and so did Bruce, "I lived as an exile for years, I don't want to be on the run anymore."
Tony protested, "My idea is that we don't sign at all. There isn't a deadline for signing as long as we don't go out and get into fights. We shouldn't involve ourselves unless there is something really big. We let them do what they want and deal with their decisions. When the mutants hiding in secret eventually come out to protest it with violence, we don't lift a finger. Either the government will handle it as promised and then our inactions would have done nothing, or the public outcry will be so high that they will need to amend it anyway. Let Richards be the face of the Accords, and we'll be the silent opposition. Us not signing is enough opposition for the public."
Steve stood up with a frown, "I can't agree with this, Tony. I can't just sit when someone gets hurt."
The war hero turned and left, with Wilson with him. Rhodey also stood up, "I still think we should sign, Tony, but I'm with you on just waiting as long as we don't break the law."
The billionaire just sighed, "Thanks Rhodey. It's always nice to see you have my back."
He just turned towards the balcony to get some air. The billionaire jumped when he heard the voice, "You wanted to talk with Jasmine Sayre. We're in charge while she's away. Why did you ask to see her?"
----------------------------------------
As usual, I generally post four chapters a week, on Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. (The month is over, so I'm going back to the usual schedule)
If you want to support me, check out my Patreon. I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.