Ultimate Iron Man

Yelena unleashed the Uni-Beam. A brilliant column of energy tore through the air, aimed straight at Magneto. Blink reacted instantly, her eyes flashing as she whipped her arm and opened a swirling portal in front of him. The beam vanished into the pink vortex and reappeared behind Natasha.

It struck her center mass.

The ice cracked under the blast, and smoke billowed in every direction.

But when the light cleared, Natasha was still standing.

Her armor, pulsing red, had absorbed the full hit. Steam hissed off her shoulders as the energy diffused into internal capacitors.

Natasha raised both arms, locked onto Blink, and fired twin repulsor beams.

Blink spun mid-air, hands flaring. Two more portals snapped open, catching the blasts and tossing them harmlessly into the frozen sky. The beams disappeared into the distance, slicing through the northern clouds.

Magneto narrowed his eyes. His hand lifted. Metal shards around them began to tremble. He clenched his fist.

Nothing happened.

He raised his other hand, veins straining as he tried to seize control of the Widow armor. The nanites rippled across Yelena's body, but they didn't bend. Natasha's armor remained still, unmoved.

His fingers twitched. His power surged.

Still nothing.

Yelena smirked.

"Oh! How cute."

Magneto's expression darkened. For the first time, doubt flickered across his face.

Behind him, Blink looked to the others.

"Time to go."

She opened a portal beside her and gestured.

Azazel vanished in a puff of red smoke, reappearing inside Blink's portal with Stark Sr. over his shoulder. The old cyborg was barely conscious, wires dangling, eyes dim. Blink held the portal open, her focus razor-sharp, sweat beading at her temple from the strain.

Pyro stepped toward it next, flames dancing between his fingers. Blink followed after him, holding the portal.

Then came another attack.

Hundreds of Alpha-class drones burst out of Natasha and Yelena's armor like a swarm of hornets. They locked on instantly, red beams charging at their cores. Their suits flared, arms raised, guiding the assault with synchronized precision.

The drones unleashed hell: converging lasers, high-frequency pulses, and kinetic burst rounds, all focused on the mutants still standing on that floating metal platform.

Magneto turned his head, just slightly. For a moment, it looked like his eyes glowed with a silver hue.

The attacks hit a wall.

A shimmering force field snapped into place around him and the others, pulsing with violet energy. Every beam, every pulse, every impact hit the barrier and slid off, redirected harmlessly into the sky.

Nothing got through.

Magneto hovered just above the frozen crater, his cape billowing in the icy wind. He looked down at Yelena and Natasha, then let out a quiet breath. His voice cut through the storm, calm and deliberate.

"We'll meet again. And next time… it won't be this easy."

He turned away.

Yelena watched the portal flicker behind him, eyes narrowed.

"That bastard can even use force fields," she muttered, shaking her head. "Fuck."

The last mutant stepped into the portal, and the vortex collapsed behind them, leaving nothing but snow, steam, and the low hum of dying energy.

Silence.

Natasha exhaled, watching the sky. "He's building something."

"Yeah," Yelena replied, her grin slowly returning. "And we just stepped into his trailer."

Natasha tapped her wrist.

"Hermes. Begin perimeter scan. If that oldie left anything behind, I want it found."

...

[UNKNOWN ISLAND] [MAGNETO'S BASE]

The Brotherhood's base was built deep into the rock of a remote island, surrounded by impenetrable storms and electromagnetic distortion fields that masked it from all satellite tracking. Every hallway pulsed with soft white-blue light, powered by a power source Forge had built.

Azazel reappeared in a flash of red smoke, cradling the broken frame of Howard Stark Sr. His boots hit the ground with a thud, and the old man groaned. Wires dragged across the floor, still sparking, leaking weak signals. His chest unit flickered like a dying ember.

Forge stood waiting at the far end of the chamber, sleeves rolled, visor gleaming with lines of data. His arms were already coated in modular tech tools.

Azazel dropped Stark Sr. onto the operating table.

"He's yours."

Forge stepped forward, scanning instantly. His voice was calm.

"He's cooked. Fusion cell's collapsing. Systemic decay in every organic component. Nerve web's barely hanging together."

He turned to the massive pod beside him, an incubation chamber pre-fitted with an advanced neuro-sync rig.

"I can stabilize him. Replace the fuel core with something cleaner. Give him a month of uptime before we need to re-sync."

He paused, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, he better be worth it."

Behind them, the chamber doors slid open with a hiss.

Magneto entered without a word, cape trailing behind him. Pyro followed close, flipping the lighter as usual.

Pyro glanced at the old man, then turned to Magneto.

"We really saving this relic? This guy looks like he belongs in a scrap heap. What's the play here?"

Forge didn't look up. "The play is survival. And options."

Pyro raised a brow.

"So that's it? You let those two walk. You save Frankenstein's great-granddad. And now we're supposed to just wait around while you hope this guy does... what? Help us upgrade our helmets? We have Forge here. You are telling me there's something about technology even he doesn't know?"

Magneto stepped forward until he stood before the operating table. He looked at Stark. Sr. with a faint, amusing smile.

Stark. Sr.'s remaining eye fluttered open. He tried to speak, but his vocal processor had shorted out. All that came was a strained, mechanical wheeze.

"He is a bridge," Magneto said. "Between what the world fears and what it doesn't understand."

Pyro scoffed. "You mean between mutants and machines?"

"No," Magneto replied. "Between evolution and its next step. Stark Sr. understands artificial transference. Neural mapping. Body replication. We have strength, power, gifts... but we also have limits. Shortened lifespans. Rare compatibility. Vulnerability to weapons we still can't counter. He can change that."

"Yup! He can create clones, and my tech can extract mutations and memories. If someone dies, we can simply transfer their memories and mutation to another body. Think of it as eternal life," Forge said while prepping up the dying oldie.

"And those two?" he finally asked. "You let them walk away. You could've ended them."

Magneto turned, locking eyes with him.

"Killing them would've started a war. And wars... burn cities. But they also burn the people we're trying to protect."

He stepped closer, his voice steady, low.

"You saw their armor. They were dangerous. We don't know who backs them, who they report to, or how deep their network runs. And I won't risk a Brotherhood uprising being wiped out in retaliation."

He gestured to Stark Sr.'s broken body.

"But now, we have something they don't. A mind that's beaten time itself. And soon, we'll have a way to rewrite what it means to be mutant."

Forge looked up, eyeing Magneto through the flicker of a lens.

"I can keep him alive. But if he wants to work, he'll need a new interface. And full neural stabilization. I need more materials."

Magneto nodded once.

"You'll have your materials."

They walked out, leaving Forge alone.

Forge activated the stabilization sequence. The lights around Stark Sr. flared blue. His body rose into the rig, cables locking in, ports connecting.

...

[EN ROUTE TO STARFIRE BASE] [Stealth Jet]

Inside, Yelena reclined in her seat, her armor peeled halfway back into casual mode, nanites forming a tight combat suit over her torso but leaving her arms and shoulders bare. 

She let out a large yawn.

Natasha stood by the cockpit, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the holo-feed projected from the nanite transmitter still broadcasting from deep inside Howard Stark Sr.'s body.

The signal was crystal clear.

They had heard everything, from Forge's "clone-and-transfer" theory to Magneto's speech about rewriting evolution. All of it.

The Brotherhood's base. Their plan. Their assets.

And their intent.

Yelena reached for a protein bar and bit into it without breaking her grin. "So let me get this straight. Mutant cloning. Mutation memory transfer. Eternal life. Using our boyfriend's zombie grandpa as the USB drive."

"Yeah," Natasha said coolly. "That about sums it up."

Yelena chewed for a moment, then leaned back. "God, I love this job."

Natasha tapped her wrist.

The projection zoomed in on Stark Sr.'s suspended body. Biometric data streamed beside his image. Forge's tools were rebuilding him. Mapping his neural structure. Bolting on fresh systems.

"We have less than one month to prepare. Well, Tony will be back by then. For now, let's keep an eye on them."

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