The lawn outside Red Ribbon Group's headquarters had been turned into a press corral.
Camera crews stood three rows deep along the security perimeter. Satellite trucks lined the street behind them. A reporter from the Daily Globe stood facing her camera operator, wireless mic in hand, hair moving in the light afternoon wind.
"Sources inside Red Ribbon Group have confirmed the Paragons successfully apprehended the so-called Mandarin — the individual responsible for a string of bombings and the false appropriation of the Ten Rings name — along with the operational architect behind the entire campaign. The team is en route now."
A heavier gust moved through. She reached up to hold her hair in place.
Then everybody heard it — a deep displacement of air from somewhere above the cloud ceiling, growing louder in a way that didn't sound like a conventional aircraft approach. The reporter looked up. A wide-body transport materialized out of the overcast, descending not on a glide path but vertically, thrusters cycling to hold it steady as it settled onto the center of the lawn with the unhurried precision of a machine that had done this before.
"The aircraft appears to be using vertical landing technology from the Universal Capsule Company. Hopefully we'll see that in the civilian market soon."
The belly ramp extended. Selene came down first, and the team followed her out into the noise.
The cameras started firing immediately, a continuous strobe of flashes that would have been disorienting for anyone not accustomed to operating under worse conditions. Reporters surged against the security line. Eddie had warned her there would be coverage — he hadn't specified the scale.
A reporter from an entertainment outlet got through first. "Captain Selene — people online are already drawing comparisons between you and Captain Rogers. How do you respond to that?"
Selene kept walking but kept her voice even. "Steve Rogers dismantled a global threat during a world war. His standard is something every Paragons member holds themselves to. If someone wants to make that comparison, I take it as a measure of what we're expected to be."
Eddie, standing to the side of the lawn in a charcoal suit, watched her handle it and made a small nod. He'd prepped the real reporters to go second — let the initial chaos burn off, then get the substantive answers on record.
The cameras found Killian and Trevor Slattery as the Paragons moved toward the building entrance, and the shot composition immediately changed. Every lens in the corral swung toward the two men being escorted through the crowd, and the noise level doubled.
A journalist from a news network broke through the outer line. "Captain Selene — reports say enhanced individuals interfered with the operation. How dangerous was this mission, and were any team members injured?"
Selene looked along the line of her people, all seven of them present and unmarked, then at Killian, who was equally unscathed thanks to the Extremis running its quiet maintenance beneath his skin.
"The operation dismantled a terrorist organization under Aldrich Killian's leadership," she said. "The Mandarin you've seen in the broadcast videos is a contracted actor — a performer named Trevor Slattery who was hired to deliver scripted appearances. He had no operational role. The explosions attributed to the Mandarin were caused by unstable human subjects in Killian's experimental program. When those subjects lost control under stress, they detonated. That's the full explanation for every incident."
She paused to let that land.
"We also had support in the field. Iron Man Tony Stark and the Ten Rings under Xu Xialing both participated in the operation. That coordinated effort is why we came home without casualties despite facing a significant number of enhanced combatants capable of explosive self-destruction."
The reporters were shouting follow-up questions before she finished the last sentence. Selene kept moving toward the entrance. Eddie was already on his earpiece, directing the media liaisons to start the structured Q&A rotation.
At the Fraternity, Tony Stark had one of the wall screens showing a live feed. He was standing next to Smith in the main common area, jacket off, suit jacket slung over the back of a chair — looking like a man who had slept for about three hours and wasn't planning to admit it.
Happy Hogan stood beside him in civilian clothes, fully operational, twenty-four hours out of the medical pod and apparently determined to prove it by being vertical in a room with people.
Selene's mention of Tony's name in her statement came through the speakers clearly. Tony watched it with a sideways expression.
"We already settled the terms," he said, half to himself. "She didn't have to put me in the credits."
Smith smiled. "She's giving you the public footprint. Your original announcement — the home address, the come-find-me press conference — that needs a payoff on camera or it just looks like theater. She's providing that."
Tony considered it. "Strategic generosity."
"She's been in a leadership position for three centuries. She knows how these things work."
Tony glanced at Happy. Happy looked fine. Better than fine — the medical pod had cleared out damage that Happy had been quietly carrying around for years, the kind of accumulation that a person stops noticing until it's gone. He seemed taller somehow.
"Still," Tony said, watching Selene field another question with the same measured patience, "it's a different style than Fury's."
"Most things are," Smith said.
Tony turned away from the screen. "I'm not staying long. I need to get back and start actually preparing for the next tournament instead of just saying I will." He picked up his jacket. "That means contingencies I haven't built yet, systems I haven't tested, and one specific suit design I've been sitting on for too long."
He looked at Smith directly. "Thank you. For Pepper. For the setup."
Smith nodded once, and said nothing, which was usually the right response to that kind of gratitude.
Tony shook his hand, said something brief to Happy, exchanged a word with Pepper, and headed for the exit. The remaining House Party suits fell into formation above the building and followed him northeast toward New York.
Late that evening, in a building that housed one of HYDRA's secure satellite operations under three layers of S.H.I.E.L.D. administrative cover, Alexander Pierce ended his official workday at the Triskelion and took a different car home than usual.
The car went a different direction than home.
The base was underground, clean, efficiently organized — the kind of facility that HYDRA ran by not looking like anything at all. Pierce walked in, nodded to the technicians, and got the damage assessment from the medic on duty before he reached the main floor. Varying degrees of wear across the team. Bucky's prosthetic arm needed joint-interface work — the heat exposure at Rose Manor had been hard on the metallurgy at the connection points, exactly the vulnerability they'd flagged before deployment.
He came to stand in front of Bucky and said, "Report."
Bucky's voice was flat, without inflection, the cadence of someone who had been conditioned to deliver operational data without editorial. "Mission failed. No Dragon Ball recovered. Killian was apprehended by the Paragons before extraction was possible. Engaged four hostile forces simultaneously: Killian's Extremis operatives, the Ten Rings, Iron Man, and the Paragons." A pause, measured. "The Paragons captain — Selene — engaged all five of us at once. Engagement duration was approximately two seconds. No meaningful resistance was possible. Assessed as mission-unachievable and withdrew."
Pierce stood with his hands clasped behind his back and processed this.
He'd sent the team at the fastest possible response time after Sitwell's intelligence came through. It hadn't been fast enough, and even if it had been, Selene's intervention at the final stage would have taken the Dragon Ball regardless. The operational window had been too narrow and the opposing forces too concentrated.
He stared at the floor for a moment, then turned and walked back toward the exit.
The Dragon Ball was gone. The Winter Soldiers had come back with nothing, and Bucky needed repairs.
But the Extremis data — Zola had been copying that from the moment of identification, well before the team deployed. That, at least, had been retrieved. It wasn't the Dragon Ball. It wasn't close to the Dragon Ball.
But it was something to work with.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~