Gunfire roared. Tires screeched. The deafening whirr of helicopter blades filled the tunnel, vibrations shaking the concrete walls.
Howard Stark clenched his jaw as he braced for the inevitable. The chopper's side-mounted gun whined to life, preparing to rip their car apart.
This was it.
And then...
A blur. A streak of red light.
The sound of metal being torn apart filled the tunnel, followed by the sickening crunch of shredded rotor blades.
Howard's eyes widened as, in an instant, the attack helicopter above them was sliced into pieces.
The gunfire stopped.
The tunnel fell into eerie silence.
Then—BOOM!
Flaming wreckage rained down as the remains of the chopper crashed at the tunnel's other end, exploding into a fiery inferno.
Howard barely had time to process before a black and silver figure shot past his car, moving at impossible speeds.
A cyborg. Or a machine. Or something in between. It was more advanced than anything Howard had ever seen. It moved like a ghost, a plasma blade burning bright red in its right hand.
Howard barely caught a glimpse before...
SHNK!
The first biker didn't even have time to scream. The plasma sword sliced clean through his torso, cutting him in half as his motorcycle spun out of control, slamming into the tunnel wall.
The second biker fired his SMG but was too slow.
The cyborg twisted mid-air, dodging bullets with unnatural agility, and swiped the blade in a single motion.
The SMG split in two. So did the biker.
Howard could only watch as the final biker tried to flee.
He didn't get far.
The cyborg threw his plasma sword like a spear. It pierced through the biker's chest, pinning him to the tunnel wall like a butchered animal before pulling it back in its hand through some kind of magnetic device.
Silence.
The only sound left was the crackling fire of the helicopter wreckage.
Jarvis's hands gripped the wheel tightly. "Sir… What in God's name was that?"
Howard was still trying to process it. His heart pounded in his chest.
Then...
CLANK.
Metal footsteps.
Howard turned, his eyes locking on the figure standing in the middle of the tunnel.
The cyborg.
Glossy black and silver armor. A body built for war. A plasma blade still burning bright red, sizzling. And then...
It spoke.
A woman's voice.
"Go! I'll take care of them."
Howard barely had time to react before the tunnel shook with fresh gunfire.
SUVs had entered from the opposite end. Headlights beamed through the smoke, illuminating the scene of carnage.
The cyborg didn't flinch.
Jarvis hit the gas.
The car lurched forward, tires screeching as they tore out of the tunnel. Howard twisted in his seat, watching as the cyborg raised her arm...
And unleashed a blinding EMP pulse.
ZZZTTT!
The tunnel was swallowed in darkness.
The SUVs screeched to a halt. Gunfire stopped as men cursed and yelled, fumbling for night vision.
Too late.
The butchering began.
The first man barely had time to react. He turned, fumbling for his weapon...
SHNK!
A plasma blade ripped through his face. It cut through flesh, bone, and skull like butter. His body twitched before his head split in two, his brain sliding out onto the pavement.
The second man screamed. He raised his rifle, blind in the darkness...
CRACK!
The cyborg punched through his chest. Literally. Her gauntlet tore into his ribcage, crushing his lungs in an instant. He let out a gurgling breath before she ripped her arm out, dragging his spine with it. Blood sprayed everywhere like a freaking broken fountain.
Thud. His corpse hit the ground.
The third man ran. Smart.
Didn't matter.
She moved like a shadow, silent, fast, merciless.
SPLAT!
One clean swipe. His body dropped in two pieces.
The men inside didn't know what was happening. Panic. Shouting.
One of them screamed into a radio. "We need backup..."
KRRSH!
A fist punched through the window and grabbed his face. The last thing he felt was his skull being crushed like a watermelon.
Blood sprayed the interior.
Another man fumbled for his gun. His hands were shaking.
The door was ripped off the hinges.
The cyborg grabbed him by the throat and yanked him out.
SNAP.
His neck twisted the wrong way.
His body convulsed for a second, then went limp.
The driver tried to start the engine. Tried to escape.
He didn't make it.
SLAASH!
Her blade sliced the car in half. The man screamed as his torso slid off the seat, his guts spilling onto the road.
She killed everyone except one.
The last survivor, crawled on the ground, his legs useless from where shrapnel had torn through them. He was crying.
"P-please…" he whimpered, blood dribbling from his lips. "I... I have a family…"
The cyborg stood over him.
He was shaking, eyes wide, his breath hitching. He could see the glow of her visor. Those two red eyes in the darkness nearly made him piss his pants.
She raised her boot.
"Please..."
SQUELCH!
His skull caved in beneath her heel. His brain matter splattered across the tunnel floor.
Silence.
The only sound left was the crackling of fire. The drip of blood.
The woman stood there, surrounded by dismembered corpses and pools of gore.
Not a single one survived.
Then, without a word, she turned...
And walked away.
[Horizon Island – Tony's Lab]
Tony, Milena, and Yelena were watching the carnage unfold in real time.
Blood. Bodies. The absolute brutality of it all.
The Widow Operative he had stationed near Howard had done her job perfectly.
Too perfectly.
Tony's eyes flicked to the biometric readings from her suit. Everything was normal and she didn't suffer any damage. Well, that was a good thing. He ordered the remaining Widows to follow Howard and keep him safe.
"Haaa... Those bastards."
Tony's eyes flicked between the screen showing Howard's escape route and the intercepted signal pinging across his encrypted database.
A distress call had been sent out.
Whoever was behind the attack on Howard had just broadcasted a signal, trying to call for backup.
Bad move.
Because Tony caught it.
A red holographic waveform pulsed in mid-air, showing the transmission's source.
[INTERCEPTED SIGNAL TRACE: ORIGIN UNKNOWN][ENCRYPTION: ADVANCED MILITARY-GRADE PROTOCOLS][DECODING ATTEMPT: 45% COMPLETE…]
"Come on, come on…" Tony muttered, his fingers flying across the holo-interface, rerouting every decryption subroutine he had.
The distress call had bounced off multiple satellites—military, private, black-market. Someone was trying hard to cover their tracks.
But Tony was better.
"Hermes, cut through the relays," he ordered. "Strip it down. I want the original source."
The AI's smooth voice responded instantly."Understood, Sir. Adjusting decryption priority. Bypassing dummy signals…"
A few seconds passed.
Then...
[TRACKING SUCCESSFUL – SIGNAL SOURCE LOCATED]
A new holographic map appeared, highlighting a location deep in Eastern Europe.
Latvia.
Tony's eyes narrowed. "Huh. That's interesting."
Melina, standing beside him, arms crossed, scowled. "Latvia?"
Yelena leaned forward, studying the screen. "So, what do you think?"
Tony drummed his fingers on the desk, staring at the map. "I don't know yet. But They weren't some random merc." He zoomed in, revealing a small industrial facility buried within the Latvian countryside. "This place? It's locked tight. No public records, no government ties, but it's definitely being used for something."
Melina clicked her tongue. "A ghost facility."
"Yep." Tony exhaled. "And if I had to bet, I'd say this is where they're keeping the next phase of whatever dumbass plan they've got."
Yelena smirked. "You want to crash their party?
The lab's holographic display flickered as Hermes's voice cut through the tense air.
"Sir. WARNING. Incoming missile detected. Origin unknown."
Tony's breath hitched. His fingers froze over the console. "What?"
The holographic map of Latvia shifted, flashing RED.
"Tactical warhead inbound on ghost facility. Estimated time to impact—7 seconds."
Melina's eyes widened. "What the hell?"
Yelena leaned forward. "Wait... what? A nuke?"
"4 seconds."
The satellite feed showed a thin white streak cutting across the night sky. It was death in the form of a hypersonic missile.
Tony's jaw clenched. "Hermes, trace the launch point—NOW."
"Attempting, Sir..."
And then...
BOOOOOM!
The entire screen lit up with blinding white light. The Latvian facility didn't just explode, it ceased to exist. A massive shockwave rippled outward, obliterating everything within a half-mile radius. Everything was gone in an instant.
The satellite feed went dark. The shockwave disrupted signals for a few seconds.
Smoke. Fire. Silence.
The facility was wiped off the map.
"...The hell just happened?" Yelena muttered.
Tony's fingers flew over the interface. "Hermes, tell me you got a trace before the launch site went cold."
The AI's voice returned, calmer now. "Tracking data retrieved, Sir. Missile origin traced to a deep-sea launch platform… off the Baltic coast. Error! Signal disappeared."
A new map appeared, highlighting a section of the ocean. There was nothing visible. No ships. No bases. Just open water.
Melina exhaled sharply. "A submerged launch site?"
Tony's mind raced. A submarine? No, a deep-sea base. That meant resources. High-tech. They have cut their tails after noticing the Widow in an advanced suit. They feared the technology and took steps to prevent their personnel from getting captured. The fastest way... Just nuke them.
He zoomed in on the blast zone in Latvia. It was a mess.
"Well, this is kinda messed up situation," He mumbled to himself.
...
[Oscorp Tower – Midnight]
Norman Osborn leaned back in his chair, the dim glow of multiple monitors flickering across his face. The Oscorp penthouse was silent, save for the rhythmic tapping of his fingers against the sleek mahogany desk.
He watched as the last of the satellite feeds flickered out, leaving only a static-filled screen where, just moments ago, there had been a secret military base in Latvia.
Now?
Nothing.
A crater. Smoke. Fire.
Norman smirked. "Well, that was fun."
He turned his chair slightly, glancing at another monitor displaying a live transcript of a very interesting phone call—the one between Justin Hammer and the Mandarin.
Because Norman had been listening.
He always listened.
[One Hour Earlier] – Norman's Office
When Hammer's penthouse phone rang, Norman had already been watching.
Justin was easy to hack. A predictable idiot with no proper security measures. Norman had been inside his systems for months now, monitoring every call, every deal, every desperate little scheme.
So when that unknown number showed up?
Norman patched himself in.
And what did he hear?
"I want Ross dead."
"I want Fury dead."
"And I want Howard Stark dead."
Norman chuckled, pouring himself a drink as he listened to Hammer ramble like an angry child.
Then came the real gold.
Mandarin's voice.
The real Mandarin.
Osborn's fingers tapped against the desk as the criminal mastermind laid out his plan—not to kill Howard immediately, but to break him.
To make him suffer.
To make him live in fear.
To make him watch everything he built crumble.
Norman took a slow sip of his whiskey. "Damn. That's actually good."
Mandarin was smart.
But Norman?
He was smarter.
Hammer and Mandarin thought they were moving unseen.
They weren't.
Norman had dozens of dummy accounts across the black market. And he had one of his pawns control the whole situation. All that pawn had to do was hire the mercs and then pick up a call and nothing more. Well, that guy got nuked. Sad.
It was child's play to redirect a mercenary group toward a "high-value target" and that fake base in Latvia, feeding them just enough misinformation to make them believe they were working for someone big.
The mission?
Kill Howard Stark.
Nothing personal.
Norman just wanted to see what would happen.
And oh, it was worth it.
Howard almost died. He saw his life flash before his eyes. He was forced to run, forced to see just how many people wanted him dead.
It was hilarious.
But then…
That mysterious cyborg widow showed up.
And Howard escaped.
The mercenaries? Dead. Obliterated.
Norman took another sip of his drink. "Well, that's disappointing."
Now, what to do?
Considering the high tech, that cyborg had, there was a possibility that she might track him down. So, Norman's smirk widened. "I think I'll just erase the whole damn thing."
He pressed a button.
A single command was sent.
...
[Present time]
And now?
The Latvian base was gone.
A tactical warhead, launched from one of Norman's off-the-books deep-sea facilities, which actually was in Ross' name. There they were doing some off-book experiments. So, even if someone tracks down that base, it'd be Ross' ass on fire.
Why?
No reason.
Just for fun.
Just to mess with Mandarin and Hammer.
Norman set his glass down, watching as his satellite feed showed nothing but fire and wreckage.
Somewhere out there, Mandarin was realizing he had just been played.
Somewhere out there, Justin Hammer was wondering what the hell just happened.
And Norman?
He was laughing.
A low chuckle at first. Then a full, uncontrollable laugh.
Because none of them had a clue who was really pulling the strings.
Mandarin thought he was the mastermind?
Hammer thought he was important?
Fools.
Norman Osborn was always five moves ahead.
And this?
This was just a game.
His eyes flickered to another monitor, where a profile of Howard Stark remained on screen.
The old man got lucky.
But how long would that luck last?
Norman's grin widened. "Let's find out."
...
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