Locke and Frank crouched low in the grass, both watching the estate ahead in silence. The country house sat isolated in the dark like a private fortress, every floor brightly lit, every entrance sealed, its grounds wrapped in the kind of security that screamed government money and guilty consciences.
From where they were, Locke could easily make out the movement inside. Men in suits patrolled past the windows with the stiff posture of professionals, their guns hidden but obvious, their routes overlapping in a pattern meant to cover every blind spot. Bennett had run inside in a panic and never come back out, which told Locke everything he needed to know.
This was Rawlins' den.
Beside him, Frank adjusted his bulletproof vest and kept both pistols ready, his face dark and unreadable beneath the night sky. He didn't look nervous, but Locke could feel the tension in him anyway. This wasn't just another hit. This was the trail that led all the way back to the people who had shattered his life.
Locke gave a faint nod. "Ready?"
"Anytime," Frank said.
"Good. Stand up straight."
Frank turned to him with a frown. "What?"
"Just do it."
Still confused, Frank rose out of the grass like he'd been told. The next second, Locke bent down, hooked one arm under Frank's armpit, slid the other behind his knees, and lifted him clean off the ground like he weighed nothing.
Frank's eyes bulged. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Don't move."
Before Frank could protest again, the world blurred.
Locke shot into the air with him in his arms, cutting across the yard in a black streak and dropping straight to the front entrance of the main building. Wind roared in Frank's ears the whole way, and by the time they landed, the man still hadn't fully processed what had happened.
Locke looked down at him. "You gonna get off me or not?"
Frank jumped away immediately, face red with anger and embarrassment. "You can fly?"
Locke rolled his shoulders like it was the most normal thing in the world. "How else are we supposed to fight alien monsters and steel robots someday?"
Then he stepped forward and kicked the front door.
The impact boomed through the estate. The two thick wooden doors ripped off their hinges and flew backward into the entry hall, crashing across the marble floor in a storm of splinters and brass. A shrill alarm screamed to life at once, turning the whole house into a live wire.
Locke didn't even flinch. He turned toward Frank and pointed upward. "Rawlins is in the office on the west side of the third floor. Go up there and kill him."
Frank tightened his grip on his pistols. "What about you?"
"I'm taking the shorter route."
The instant the words left his mouth, Locke launched himself upward. Frank stared after him for half a second, his expression twisting as footsteps and shouted orders started flooding in from every direction.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, then charged inside.
Locke rose past the face of the mansion and stopped outside a third-floor window. Through the reinforced glass, he saw an old bald man in a tailored suit staring toward the disturbance below. Pale scars spread from the corners of his eyes like peeled petals, and when he looked up and saw Locke floating there, his face went white with shock.
Locke smiled.
Then he punched through the bulletproof glass.
The whole window exploded inward with a thunderous crash. Chunks of reinforced glass and twisted frame blasted across the office, slamming into the carpet and furniture hard enough to leave the place looking like it had been hit by a grenade. Rawlins threw himself backward just in time, but he still caught a long slice across one arm, and blood soaked through his sleeve almost instantly.
Locke flew into the room like a missile and hadn't even landed before the gunfire started.
Several bodyguards hidden near the walls opened up on him at once. Bullets hammered into his body in tight bursts, but none of them did a thing. The rounds flattened, bounced away, or dropped harmlessly to the floor like someone had emptied a box of scrap metal at his feet.
Locke didn't bother dodging.
He moved.
His body blurred into a streak of afterimages, and then the two nearest gunmen were gone, smashed into the wall with enough force that the plaster cracked around them. They hung there for a second before slumping down, limp and broken, their weapons falling from numb hands.
The room went silent.
Bennett, who had been curled up in a corner behind a cabinet, let out a strangled gasp. He had only enough time to raise his head before Locke scooped up a dropped pistol and fired once.
The bullet hit Bennett cleanly, and the man collapsed without another sound.
Now only two people were left in the office.
Rawlins clutched his bleeding arm and backed away from the desk, his face warped with fear. "Don't kill me," he stammered. "Please. I've got money. Millions in the safe. Gold bars too. It's all yours."
Locke walked to the desk as calmly as if he owned the place. He brushed broken glass off the chair, sat down, and leaned back in complete comfort while the gunfire below echoed up through the floor.
Then he spun the pistol in his hand and looked at Rawlins with a faint smile. "Idiot. If I kill you now, the money's mine anyway."
Rawlins' lips twitched. "I have an offshore account. Thirty million. I'll transfer it all. Just let me go."
Locke shook his head. "Thirty million can't buy my conscience."
"Fifty million."
Locke said nothing.
"Seventy million," Rawlins blurted. "That's everything I have."
"I don't believe you."
Rawlins' face twitched again, but he stayed silent.
Locke tilted the gun toward the office door, where the pounding and gunfire were getting closer by the second. "You should hurry. If the man outside breaks in, I won't be able to protect you."
Rawlins stared at him. "Aren't you together?"
"We are," Locke said. "That's the problem. I can be bribed. He can't."
That finally landed.
The sound of Frank's rampage below was getting closer, growing louder with every few seconds. Rawlins listened to it and understood exactly what kind of gamble he had left. If he stayed, Frank would kill him. If he trusted the man sitting at his desk, he might still die, but at least there was a chance.
"How much?" Rawlins asked hoarsely.
"A hundred million."
Rawlins' eyes widened. "That's insane."
"Your life isn't cheap," Locke said. "The guy outside can't fly. I can. We leave through the window."
"Ninety million."
Locke shoved the computer across the desk toward him. "You don't bargain over your own life. A hundred million. Transfer it."
Rawlins stood there struggling, sweat beading at his temples despite the cool air in the room. He knew he was probably being played, but fear had already dug its claws too deep into him. Once death was standing outside the door with a gun in its hand, even the slimmest chance started to look precious.
Locke spread one hand. "Time's running out. What use is a fat bank account if you're dead?"
As if to drive the point home, several bullets tore through the wooden office door from the outside. Splinters blasted inward in a spray of jagged debris.
Rawlins flinched and gave in.
"Fine," he hissed. "I'll do it. Just keep your word."
A minute later, Locke's offshore account received the transfer. One hundred million dollars. The confirmation flashed across the screen, neat and beautiful.
At almost the same moment, something heavy smashed into the hallway outside.
Rawlins panicked. "Now! Take me out of here!"
Locke rose from the chair, grabbed him by the back of the collar, and dragged him toward the shattered window. "Get ready," he said. "You're leaving through the window."
Then he threw him.
Rawlins flew out into the night with a shriek that ended in a distant, ugly crash.
Locke looked down and shrugged to himself. "I said we could leave through the window. I never said we were leaving together."
The office door exploded inward.
Frank stormed inside covered in blood, chest heaving, his pistols still smoking. He swept the room in a single glance, took in Bennett's corpse, the empty office, and then the screaming that had just come from below.
He walked to the broken window and looked down. "Why'd you throw him?"
Locke moved past him and launched himself out into the night. "He wanted to leave. I helped."
Frank stared after him, teeth clenched. "Hell of a waste climbing all the way up here."
What followed was simple enough.
Frank got his answers from Rawlins and confirmed that everything Locke had told him was true. After that, Locke put a bullet in Rawlins' head, and the progress on his gold-tier prey target rose to four out of five. It was a little disappointing, though, because the first three prey had died too simply and without enough emotional intensity, which meant this reward package was almost certainly never going to reach a five-star evaluation.
Otherwise, Locke might have had to get creative.
Once his revenge was finished, Frank formally agreed to join the Avengers. Locke then bought the two estates next to his research compound and merged all three properties into a single massive base, giving the group enough room for housing, training, storage, and whatever else they might need once the real chaos started.
Elsewhere, Obadiah Stane sat in the back of a car and felt happier than he had in days.
The dark mood that had been hanging over him was gone. He opened the briefcase on the seat beside him and looked down at the Arc Reactor inside, its blue glow reflecting in his eyes like a jewel. The thing was beautiful, tiny and elegant and powerful enough to drive a suit of steel through the sky. It was incredible, and once again it proved that Tony Stark really was the greatest weapons inventor in the world.
Before this, Obadiah had spent days trying to understand how Tony had survived Afghanistan. He had gone over the problem again and again and still couldn't solve it until the news hit the airwaves and the Daily Bugle ran that blurry image of the so-called Human Canned Man. Looking at that picture, he noticed the circular glow in the figure's chest and recognized it immediately.
That was when everything clicked.
He dug up the cave surveillance footage the Ten Rings had sent earlier and reviewed it frame by frame. Once he understood that Tony had spent all that time building armor instead of missiles, the whole situation changed. He had already been worried Tony was beginning to suspect him, but suddenly a better opportunity appeared.
Since the disaster in Afghanistan, the U.S. government had been far more shaken than it wanted anyone to know. They needed a symbol of strength. They needed fear back on their side. If he could deliver armor technology to them, then everything would reverse. Selling weapons to terrorists and arranging Tony's death wouldn't matter anymore. He could walk straight into the White House and the Pentagon as an honored guest.
The only problem was that his scientists were useless.
A whole team of the best minds money could buy still couldn't reproduce what Tony had built alone. The armor was one thing, but the Arc Reactor was the real miracle, and even after half a month of work they couldn't make one.
Then Pepper uncovered evidence of his crimes.
That ended his hesitation.
There was only one move left now. He had to take the ready-made Arc Reactor out of Tony's chest. After all, if Tony really cared about Stark Industries, then surely he wouldn't want to see it fail.
No, not Stark Industries anymore.
Stane smiled to himself in the dark.
Stanny Industries.
....
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