James Buchanan Barnes looked at him. The eyes were hollow, wiped clean by a century of cryo freeze and brainwashing. There was no recognition, only the mission.
"You don't even remember them, do you?" Tony asked, his voice breaking with an agonizing grief that fueled his strength. "You killed the best people I ever knew and you don't even have a name for them."
Winter Soldier lunged again.
"I'm done playing," Tony snarled.
He couldn't magnetize the arm. So he went deeper.
Tony reached out with his Alpha Level Magnetism. He focused on the trace amounts of iron in the hemoglobin of the Soldier's blood. He focused on the zippers, the buckles, the microscopic metal shavings embedded in the Soldier's boots.
He seized Winter Soldier.
Barnes froze mid strike, his muscles locking up as if he had been cast in stone. He strained, his veins bulging, the cybernetic arm whining as the servos tried to fight the invisible vice, but he was held suspended in the air, paralyzed by the very blood in his veins.
Tony turned his gaze to Alexander Pierce, who was frantically typing codes into a sealed escape hatch that Tony had already bricked.
"Pierce," Tony said, his voice echoing off the walls with the finality of a death sentence.
He raised a hand. The entire reinforced wall next to Pierce ripped away, rebar snapping like thread, exposing the coward.
"JARVIS, broadcast," Tony commanded. "Let the world see the face of the man who sold them out."
"Live in three... two... one," JARVIS confirmed.
Across the globe, the digital landscape shifted. Every screen that wasn't already scrolling the Hydra personnel list… flickered and cut to a high definition feed of the ruined bunker. Billions of people saw Tony Stark, his golden armor scorched black and streaked with oil and blood, standing over a trembling Alexander Pierce.
"This is Alexander Pierce," Tony's voice was broadcast to every corner of the Earth. "He's a leader of the World Security Council. He's also the man who signed the order for the assassination of Howard and Maria Stark. He's the man who has managed the Winter Soldier program for two decades."
Tony leaned in, the faceplate of his armor mere inches from Pierce's face. "Tell them, Alex. Tell them how it felt to trade the lives of your friends for a seat at a table built by Hydra."
"It was necessary!" Pierce screamed, his composure finally snapping under the weight of the global gaze. "The world is too chaotic! It needs order! Howard didn't understand that… he was too soft, too focused on the future! We are the future!"
"No," Tony whispered, the word echoing through the speakers of a billion devices like a gavel striking a sounding block. "You're the past."
Tony reached out with his Magnetism, seizing the heavy gold ring on Pierce's finger, the seal of the World Security Council, the symbol of his false authority.
Pierce cried out as his hand was yanked forward, suspended in the air. Under Tony's absolute control, the ring began to vibrate. It heated up, glowing dull red, then bright orange, then white hot. The gold liquefied, hovering just above the skin.
Tony manipulated the molten metal with surgical cruelty. He shaped it in the air, twisting the liquid gold into a skull with tentacles.
"You love the symbol so much? Wear it."
With a flick of his mind, the molten gold slammed into Pierce's forehead.
Ssssss.
The sound of searing flesh was audible over the broadcast. Pierce shrieked, a sound of primal agony, as the mark of the beast was branded permanently into his skull. As he fell to his knees, clawing at his face, Tony's Technopathy triggered a silent command.
Every bank account, every offshore shell company in the Caymans, every liquid asset tied to Pierce and the Hydra high command was instantly drained. The numbers spun down to zero in milliseconds, the funds transferred irrevocably to the Stark Foundation for Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism.
"I've stripped you of your name, your money and your shadow," Tony said to the weeping man. "Now, I'm giving you to the people."
Tony gestured upward. His Magnetism seized the buckles of Pierce's suit. He hurled the man upward, straight through the hole he had punched in the ceiling layers, shooting him up the shaft like a bullet. Pierce was deposited onto the surface pavement, right into the middle of a crowd of armed S.H.I.E.L.D. loyalists who had just watched his confession.
Tony turned back to the Winter Soldier.
His hand trembled. The image of the blue dress, stained red, flashed in his mind.
But as he looked at the broken man before him, Tony realized that this was not the moment for conversation, nor was Bucky in any state to receive it.
Tony's armored hand shot out. Using his Super Soldier strength, augmented by the suit's hydraulics, he delivered a precise strike to a pressure point behind Bucky's ear.
Bucky's body went limp. He slumped to the concrete floor, unconscious.
Tony stepped out of the ruins of the Triskelion, the Winter Soldier carried over one shoulder like a trophy of war.
The sun was setting over Washington D.C., casting bloody shadows over the burning remains of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Thousands of people stood on the banks of the Potomac, watching him.
They had seen a man dismantle a global government in hours. They had seen the ugly truth of their masters exposed. And now they saw Iron Man, glowing in the twilight, a god who had outgrown his armor and his country.
"Aryan…" Tony said into the quantum encrypted comms.
"I'm here, Tony," Aryan's voice came through.
"The Shield is gone. Hydra is screaming. I'm bringing the asset in." Tony paused, looking down at the smoking crater where the old world used to be. "The world is going to be looking for someone to lead them out of the dark. Tell me you're ready."
"I've been ready since the day we met, Tony," Aryan replied. "Come to Umbrella. We have a new world to build."
———
In the high tower of Umbrella HQ, Aryan stood by the window, watching the final confrontation play out on his screens.
"Queen," he commanded softly. "Have the staff prepare the guest wing. And arrange a reinforced room for Sergeant Barnes."