Ultimate Iron Man

[The Brotherhood's Base] [Surveillance room]

Mystique stood in the center of the room with a worried expression. The unexpected attack by drones took everyone by surprise. It was supposed to be a simple grab and run, instead it turned out to be a mess. Her yellow eyes narrowed at the flickering monitors. She tried to contact the team, but their comms are dead.

Blink paced back and forth behind her, holding her hands out and attempting to open a portal to their last known location. Each time, the same result. Her power sparked, shimmered faintly, then collapsed before it could fully manifest.

"It's like there's nothing there," she muttered under her breath. "No space to grab onto."

Mystique turned her head slightly. "Try again."

Blink clenched her jaw and focused. Her eyes glowed faintly as she summoned the portal again. The air bent and twisted, but then it fizzled out with a pulse of static. She staggered back, frustrated. "Darn it! I just can't... Something's interfering with my portal. It must be those drones."

Forge was flipping through encrypted satellite feeds, ground-based cameras, and Brotherhood surveillance nodes scattered across the city. He typed rapidly, his cybernetic eye flickering as he locked into the last known timestamp of Magneto's location.

The footage skipped like a scratched disc. Magneto's heat signature vanished. The entire quadrant around the street where the battle took place had been rendered a technological dead zone.

"Whoever did it is good. They painted a black hole right over the map," Forge said, voice tense. "Every drone, every satellite feed in the area got fried or looped. They even jacked my tech without me noticing."

Mystique's voice was low and cold. "Looped?"

Forge nodded grimly. "Artificial signal. Someone masked the entire situation and looped every single surveillance tech in New York City. The feeds are just running on a continuous loop, playing over and over. Whoever did this knew exactly how to cover their tracks."

Mystique turned her back to the screen and looked toward the wide staircase that led deeper into the base. The other Brotherhood members were starting to notice the silence. Whispers carried through the stone halls. Questions. Fear.

"Can you track their biometric data?" she asked.

"I've been trying," Forge replied. "But nothing. They're either in a complete stasis field or..."

"Or dead," she finished.

Forge hesitated, not wanting to confirm it.

He leaned back from the console, his cybernetic eye twitching slightly as it scanned through layers of corrupted data streams. He didn't speak immediately, his jaw tightening as he considered what to say next.

Finally, he exhaled and nodded. "I think it's Stark. This level of coordination, the precision, the suppression field tight enough to cancel out Blink's portals, even the way the feed was scrubbed clean—there's only one person I know who can run ops like that and make it look effortless."

Mystique folded her arms across her chest. She knew and had seen what Tony's technology was capable of. And if he has shifted his attention toward the Brotherhood, then he'll come for them soon. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"I'd bet my other eye on it," Forge replied, swiveling in his chair to face her fully. "If Tony Stark's involved, then the survival odds for Magneto and the others aren't great. He doesn't fight unless he's already planned five steps ahead. If they're still alive, it's because he wants them alive. Otherwise? They'd be ashes, and no one would ever find out."

Mystique was in charge in Magneto's absence, and she knew that with their strongest members and leader gone, things would start to crumble soon enough. Stark will come for them, and they will be too weak to stop him. So, before that happens, she wanted to create countermeasures.

She stepped closer to Forge. "Can you build something more advanced than his armor? Or at least find a way to counter his suppressors? If he comes after us next, we won't survive a second round with just brute force."

Forge rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, then pushed away from the console. He stood and walked over to a nearby workbench littered with spare components, blueprints, and a disassembled plasma rifle. He picked up a twisted fragment of metal and turned it over in his hands as he spoke.

"I've been watching the evolution of Stark's tech and suits for months. It's a predictive combat system with real-time adaptability, drone support, neural-link optimization, and possibly AI. The worst part is his constant upgrades, making it challenging to know what's integrated. Facing it head-on unprepared is suicide."

Mystique's voice was firm. "Then don't fight it head-on. Outthink it. Find the holes."

Forge glanced up at her. "That's the thing. There aren't many. But… if I had enough time, the right resources, and complete lab access, I could build something that might level the field. Not match him blow-for-blow, but counter him where it matters."

He paused for a moment. Then said, "But, if you really want me to defeat Stark tech, I need to be present there with enough resources, and someone strong has to fight him for at least 5 minutes and make him use that glowing energy power of his for me to get all the data. Then I'll build something better to counter him on the spot."

"Then we'll need something to counter his suppressors first," Mystique said.

"That's trickier," Forge admitted. "If we take his Skrull killer tech into account, then he must be using some kind of nanite tech tied to bio-frequency modulation. It targets specific mutation signatures and shuts them down without affecting baseline humans. To counter that, I'd need to isolate the frequency Stark's using and build something that can jam it or block it on a cellular level."

"Can you do it?"

He looked at her for a long moment as he drew the blueprint in his mind, then gave a slow nod. "Yes. It's possible."

"Then drop everything you're working on and focus on it. By the way, how is Stark Sr. doing?" She asked.

"Despite the order to stop all operations and focus on taking down Stark, he's working on the clone project. It's already at 70% in progress," He answered.

...

[Meanwhile...] [[S.H.I.E.L.D. BASE – HOLDING CELL LEVEL]

The door slid open with a hiss, and the Maximoff twins stepped inside. The security field rippled as they passed through, then re-stabilized behind them. Tony remained at the entrance, arms still folded, watching every step.

Inside the cell, Magneto looked up slowly. His face was bruised. He didn't look surprised to see them. If anything, he looked as if he had been expecting this moment.

"Wanda. Pietro," he said quietly.

Neither of them responded at first. Wanda stepped forward with a cold expression. Tony told them everything and showed them the live footage of Magneto's confession.

"You lied to us," she said simply.

Magneto didn't flinch. He nodded once, then looked at the floor.

"You're not our father," Pietro added, his voice flatter than usual. "You found us in a lab, took us in, and built a story. You used us."

"I protected you... raised you as my own," Magneto said, raising his head slowly. "I gave you purpose. I gave you something the world wouldn't."

Wanda's jaw tightened. "As grateful as we are for saving and raising us, you also gave us an enemy. One we didn't ask for."

Magneto looked at her, his eyes dim but resolute. "You wouldn't have survived without me. Do you really believe Xavier would have come for you? That SHIELD would've cared about two enhanced kids abandoned in a lab in Eastern Europe? You would have died in that place. I did what I had to do."

"You did what benefited you," Wanda said. "You simply saved us because you wanted weapons for your selfish goal."

There was a brief silence.

"Is any of it real?" Pietro asked. "Did you ever care about us?"

Magneto's lips parted slightly, as if to speak, but the words caught in his throat. His shoulders sagged further under the weight of the question.

"I did," he said at last. "I still do."

"Liar!" Wanda said as a burst of chaos energy erupted from her body. "I can sense your emotions. I can read your memories." She looked at him in disgust. "You were going to abandon us there, but then you found the experiment data and decided to use us for your goal. You always wanted to turn us into weapons... Using fake memories, hallucinations to manipulate our minds since we were kids... But thanks to my power, I was able to nullify them. I could've killed you anytime I wanted, but you saved our lives nonetheless..."

She turned back and began to walk toward the exit door. Pietro followed her. She stopped near the door and glanced back. "...think of it as mercy. And we'll expose you. No more mutants or humans will get hurt anymore. That I promise."

Both of them left.

...

[THE BROTHERHOOD BASE – HOWARD STARK SR.'S LAB] [TWO DAYS LATER]

The underground lab was busy as usual. Mechanical arms moved trays of organ samples, cooling systems hummed along the walls, and digital screens showed lines of code on glass panels. The air was cold and sterile, filled with the smells of chemicals and metal.

The clone project was nearing 70% completion. Rows of pods lined the back wall, each containing partial bodies in suspended animation—neural frameworks constructed with a combination of mutant templates and genetic splicing. Some bore the early features of Brotherhood members. Others had enhancements built in from scratch.

Stark Sr. stood before one of the new bodies. He adjusted a circuit on one of the fetal brain interface modules when his fingers twitched involuntarily.

For a moment, he paused.

His right hand began to tremble. He attempted to recalibrate the limb through internal commands, sending override instructions from his spinal CPU. But the tremor intensified.

Then heat surged through his torso. His artificial blood began to boil. He tried to speak, to call Forge, but his vocal module failed. The room's lights dimmed as the core reactor in his chest flickered under stress. His pain receptors were suddenly activated, and he felt every bit of pain and agony.

He reached for the nearest console, but his legs refused to respond. His vision split, glitching with digital artifacts, color distorting across his synthetic retinas. The processor implanted behind his left eye surged to 300% activity, then flatlined. Internal diagnostics attempted a shutdown, but the system rejected every command.

In his last coherent moment, Howard realized something had infiltrated his body at the root level.

The safety features shut down.

His body seized, power surging past safe thresholds. The reactor in his chest detonated, obliterating the upper torso in an instant. The explosion ignited the coolant lines and destabilized the containment fields housing the growing clones.

Every system collapsed in under two seconds. It was as if someone had activated the instant self-destruction. The lab imploded into a firestorm of synthetic tissue, plasma arcs, and shattered containment pods.

Above ground, a controlled tremor was felt through the foundation of the Brotherhood's base. Alarms blared as internal sensors reported a complete systems failure in Lab Sector Twelve.

By the time Mystique and Forge reached the wreckage, there was nothing left but just fire and ashes.

...

[Back at Horizon Base]

"Goodbye, gramps. And thank you for wasting their resources and time," Tony mumbled to himself.

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