Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Embers
Tony Stark, haunted by loss and guilt, lives in isolation. A cryptic message from a forgotten past shatters his fragile peace.
Tony Stark didn’t build things anymore. The workshop beneath his lakeside cabin was a tomb of dormant suits, dormant tools, and dormant purpose. His world was measured in the soft weight of Morgan on his chest as she slept, the scent of Pepper’s perfume on the morning air, and the persistent, low-grade hum of panic that never truly left his temples. The universe had taken, and he had given, and the account was closed. He’d earned this quiet. He repeated it like a mantra.
The silence broke with a whirr and a projected blue glow. FRIDAY’s voice, calibrated to softness, still felt like a shout. “Boss? An encrypted data packet was just forced through the old Stark Industries satellite relays. Origin untraceable. It’s addressed to you. Personal protocol: ‘The Anvil.’”
The name was a punch to the gut. The Anvil. A joke, from a lifetime ago. A project buried so deep even SHIELD’s shadows hadn’t found it. He’d been young, drunk on genius and arrogance, dabbling in theoretical quantum-state energy manipulation. It was unstable, terrifying. He’d scrubbed it, or so he thought.
“Play it,” Tony rasped, his mouth dry.
The hologram fizzed. No face, just a distorted, synthesized voice. “Hello, Anthony. Did you think you could bury your mistakes in code? You created a key. I have become the lock it opens. Your legacy isn’t peace. It’s a blueprint for power. And I’m here to collect. Watch the sky over Manhattan tonight. Consider it a receipt.”
The transmission ended. For a long moment, Tony just stared at the empty space, the old ghosts Obadiah, Vanko, Killian, Thanos crowding in. He looked at his trembling hands, the scars from the Stones a permanent map of his cost. Then he looked through the window at Morgan, chasing fireflies with Pepper.
The embers inside him, cold for so long, sparked. He walked to a sealed wall panel. His palm print unlocked it with a hiss. Inside, on a stand, was not a suit of armor, but a simple, unadorned chest plate and bracer unit a barebones reactor interface and control matrix. A foundation. Not Iron Man. Something else. Something new. He had to call Rhodey. He had to lie to Pepper. Just one more time.