The fallout began quietly.
It always did.
A briefing leaked. Not the armor schematics. Not the VR pod internals. Just enough numbers to make people nervous. Production capacity. Training acceleration. Casualty reduction estimates paired with deployment speed.
Someone at a defense committee stared at the report and said the wrong thing out loud.
"This isn't a weapons program," they said. "This is an army generator."
Within hours, the phrase escaped the room.
By the next morning, it was everywhere.
In Geneva, an emergency session of the United Nations convened behind closed doors. No flags. No press. Just a circular table filled with people who had spent their lives believing escalation could be managed with treaties.
They were wrong.
A representative from one of the smaller nations spoke first, voice tight. "We are being told that in ten minutes, a civilian can be trained to operate battlefield-grade powered armor."
"That's a mischaracterization," another snapped. "They are not civilians. They are volunteers."
"Volunteers trained faster than any special forces unit in human history," the first shot back. "On another planet. Beyond meaningful oversight."
A screen flickered to life, showing a still image of the CMC suits standing in their racks. Ten feet tall. Silent. Patient.
"This violates the spirit of every arms limitation agreement we have," someone said.
"Which agreement covers off-world existential threats?" another replied.
The room went quiet.
That was the problem. Mars changed everything. The Zerg were not hypothetical. They were not insurgents or rival states. They were an extinction engine already chewing through human settlements.
And yet.
Power concentrated that quickly never stayed pointed in one direction forever.
In Washington, hearings were scheduled and then rescheduled as witnesses declined to appear or appeared and said nothing useful. Executives from Stark Industries gave carefully worded testimony about "defensive innovation" and "extraordinary circumstances."
When pressed about production scalability, they deflected.
When asked who controlled deployment authority, they redirected.
When asked how quickly the system could be repurposed for Earth-based conflicts, no one answered directly.
That silence was louder than any admission.
Across the Atlantic, a coalition of defense ministers released a joint statement condemning unilateral militarization of space. It was followed, three hours later, by a classified request for observer access to the Mars barracks.
They condemned it.
They wanted it.
On late-night talk shows, pundits argued in circles.
"This is the Iron Man arms race all over again."
"No, this is worse. This is industrialized soldierhood."
"You're all missing the point. Without this, Mars falls."
A retired general leaned into the camera and said, "You don't put the genie back in the bottle. You just decide who holds it."
Behind the scenes, messages crossed channels that never officially existed.
An encrypted call reached SHIELD headquarters. Analysis teams were reassigned. Old contingency folders were reopened. One file, long dormant, was moved back into active status.
Enhanced Individuals. Non-Terrestrial Assets. Containment Scenarios.
In Gotham, Wayne Enterprises quietly rerouted resources. Nothing flashy. Nothing traceable. Just enough to expand simulation ethics research and post-combat psychological stabilization models.
Bruce Wayne did not make a public statement.
He did not need to.
In Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, and a dozen other capitals, similar conversations played out with different accents and the same fear.
If Mars could produce an army this fast, what stopped Earth from demanding the same?
And if Earth demanded it, who decided where those soldiers were sent?
The first protest formed outside a defense contractor's headquarters before lunch.
By nightfall, there were hundreds.
Signs read:
NO WAR FACTORIES
MARS IS NOT A TEST RANGE
YOU CAN'T SPEEDRUN HUMANITY
Someone spray-painted a phrase that went viral within hours.
YOU CAN'T COMPRESS A SOUL
On social media, the video of Erik's performance resurfaced again and again, stitched beside footage of the CMC suits. Comment sections split cleanly down the middle.
Hope versus fear.
Protection versus control.
Art versus armor.
Some people felt the contrast instinctively, even if they could not explain why.
Late that night, a closed-door meeting convened between select world leaders and Stark representatives. Voices were raised. Threats were implied. Compromises were floated and rejected.
One diplomat finally said what everyone else was thinking.
"If this system ever comes to Earth, intentionally or not, it ends the balance of power as we know it."
Tony Stark's response was calm.
"The balance of power already ended when the Zerg showed up. We're just catching up."
Silence followed.
On a balcony overlooking the city, Erik felt the tremor ripple through human discourse like feedback through a crowded hall.
Fear. Ambition. Resolve. Panic.
"All at once," he murmured.
Lady Death stood beside him, arms folded, watching the city lights flicker. "They always argue when the stakes become real."
"They are afraid," Erik said. "Not of the enemy. Of themselves."
She nodded. "As they should be."
Erik closed his eyes and listened.
The song of humanity was accelerating, not just on Mars, but in thought, in policy, in imagination. Lines were being redrawn faster than anyone could agree on where they belonged.
"Someone will try to pull this back," he said quietly.
"And someone else will push harder," Death replied.
Below them, the city kept moving. Protests. Briefings. Deals. Dreams.
Mars was no longer just a battlefield.
It was a mirror.
And Earth did not like what it was starting to see.
__________
The meeting did not take place in a boardroom.
Tony would have hated that.
Instead, Bruce appeared as a silent projection in Stark's private lab, the lights dimmed low, the massive outline of a dormant CMC suit standing between them like a third participant that refused to be ignored.
No aides, lawyers, or recordings.
Just two men who understood exactly what they had unleashed.
Tony broke the silence first. "They're asking the wrong questions."
Bruce's white lenses narrowed slightly. "They always do."
"They're worried about who controls the armor," Tony continued, pacing slowly. "Who authorizes deployment. Who signs the paperwork. All important, sure. But that's not the real problem."
Bruce nodded once. "The real problem is what happens when this becomes normal."
Tony stopped pacing.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "That."
Bruce folded his arms. "You've created a system that compresses experience. Not just skill. Experience. Fear. Death. Adaptation."
Tony rubbed his face. "We didn't rewrite morality, Bruce. We rewrote time."
"That's worse," Bruce replied flatly.
Tony huffed a humorless laugh. "You don't pull punches, do you?"
"No," Bruce said. "Not when the line matters."
They both looked at the armor.
It stood there, massive and still, waiting for orders it did not care about.
Tony gestured at it. "This thing doesn't make people cruel. It doesn't make them violent. It makes them effective. That's not evil."
"No," Bruce agreed. "But effectiveness without context is how atrocities happen faster."
Tony turned back to him. "So what's your line?"
Bruce didn't answer immediately. He was thinking. Not tactically. Ethically. That always took him longer.
"Earth," he said finally.
Tony stiffened. "I figured."
"No CMC deployment on Earth," Bruce continued. "No VR imprinting for terrestrial conflicts. No matter how justified it sounds in the moment."
Tony frowned. "What if the Zerg breach Earth?"
"Then everything changes," Bruce said calmly. "But until that moment, Mars stays the exception. The armor stays contextual."
Tony exhaled slowly. "You realize how fragile that promise is."
"Yes," Bruce said. "That's why it has to be explicit."
Tony leaned back against a table. "You're afraid of the slippery slope."
"I'm afraid of inevitability," Bruce corrected. "Once people believe they can manufacture soldiers, they will try to solve every problem that way."
Tony's jaw tightened. "We already do that. We just call it recruitment."
Bruce didn't argue. "This is different. This bypasses growth. Reflection. Choice over time."
Tony met his gaze. "The soldiers choose to step into the pod."
"For now," Bruce replied. "What happens when a government decides ten minutes of training is less harmful than poverty or prison?"
That hit.
Tony didn't respond right away.
"Okay," he said finally. "No forced participation. Ever. Voluntary only. With psychological screening before and after."
"And cooldown periods," Bruce added. "No chaining simulations. No identity erosion."
Tony nodded. "Already in the system. Hard limits. Lockouts."
Bruce studied him. "And the music."
Tony blinked. "The what?"
"You know what I mean," Bruce said. "Something else is listening. Influencing. Not maliciously, but perceptibly."
Tony hesitated. "Him."
"Yes."
Tony crossed his arms. "He's not part of this program."
"Doesn't matter," Bruce said. "If soldiers start associating strength, survival, or transcendence with an external presence, that becomes belief."
Tony grimaced. "And belief becomes leverage."
"Or worship," Bruce said.
Tony sighed. "He's not like that."
Bruce softened slightly. "I know. That's why I trust him more than most."
Tony looked up sharply. "That's not comforting."
"It's honest," Bruce said. "Which is why this needs guardrails. Not just technical ones."
Tony stared at the suit again. "We're building an army that learns faster than it can emotionally process."
"Yes," Bruce said. "So we counterbalance it."
"How."
Bruce brought up a new projection.
Not armor.
People.
Counselors. Therapists. Veteran specialists. Rotational decompression facilities built into the barracks. Mandatory post-combat integration.
"Every soldier who trains fast needs to heal just as deliberately," Bruce said. "You can't compress recovery."
Tony studied the list. "This costs time. Money."
Bruce's mouth twitched. "You have both."
Tony snorted. "Yeah. Fair."
A pause.
Then Tony spoke quietly. "You ever think we're trying to save the universe with duct tape and trauma management?"
"All the time," Bruce said.
Tony smiled faintly. "Good. Means we're still human."
Bruce stepped closer to the projection of the armor. "One more line."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "Hit me."
"No replication without consensus," Bruce said. "No exporting the system. No licensing it. If someone wants this, they come to Mars, they see the cost, and they answer to all of us."
Tony nodded slowly. "Avengers oversight."
"And beyond," Bruce added. "Independent observers. Civilian ethics panels."
Tony groaned. "You really are trying to make this hard."
"Yes," Bruce said. "Because it should be."
Tony looked at him for a long moment, then extended a hand.
"Deal," he said.
Bruce clasped it.
Not as Batman.
Not as Iron Man.
Just two men trying to keep the world from tearing itself apart too efficiently.
As the call ended, Tony remained where he was, staring at the armor.
"Guardrails," he murmured. "Hope they hold."
Somewhere far beyond the lab, Erik paused mid-step, a faint smile crossing his face as the universe's rhythm steadied just a little.
They were arguing.
That was good.
__________
__________
That's all for today, sorry for a shorter chapter. I have a clopen today and wont have much time for sleep…
Anyway, any questions or concerns let me know.