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Ivan Vanko was a mess.
He sat in his cramped apartment, nursing a bottle of vodka that was more empty than full. The television flickered in the corner, showing nothing he cared to watch. His bird chirped occasionally from its cage, the only other sound in the silence.
Tony Stark was dead.
By all rights, Vanko should have been celebrating. The son of the man who'd stolen his father's work, who'd built an empire on technology that should have belonged to the Vanko family—gone. Killed somewhere in Afghanistan, probably by the same terrorists who'd been buying Stark weapons for years.
Poetic justice, really.
But Vanko felt nothing.
His entire life had been built around revenge. Every calculation, every design, every moment spent perfecting his understanding of arc reactor technology—all of it pointed toward one goal. Destroying Tony Stark with his own father's creation.
Now that goal was gone. And Vanko didn't know what to do with himself.
So he drank. Day after day, bottle after bottle, waiting for some new purpose to emerge from the fog.
The door splintered inward.
Vanko's hand moved toward the knife hidden under his chair cushion—old habits dying hard—but he was too slow, too drunk, too broken to react in time.
Black-armored soldiers poured into the room. Heavy respirator masks. Military-grade weapons. They moved like professionals, clearing corners and establishing control before Vanko could even stand.
Behind them came a man in red and black, white hair stark against dark skin.
EMIYA surveyed the apartment with mild distaste. The smell alone was impressive—stale alcohol, unwashed human, and the particular funk of someone who'd given up on life.
"You're Ivan Vanko?"
The question was rhetorical. EMIYA had studied the target file extensively. The man before him matched the description: massive build, tangled hair, prison tattoos covering most of his visible skin. The kind of face that suggested violence was a comfortable old friend.
"Who the hell are you?" Vanko slurred, trying to focus through the vodka haze.
"Doesn't matter. Bag him."
Two Wolfpack soldiers hauled Vanko to his feet, zip-tying his wrists behind his back and pulling a black hood over his head. The Russian cursed in his native language, but the fight had gone out of him long ago.
EMIYA pulled out his phone.
"Master. We have Vanko."
On the other end, Luke's voice came through over the sound of gunfire. "Good. Bring him to headquarters. I'll meet you there."
The Reapers were worse than Luke had expected.
He'd fought vampires before. Regular bloodsuckers went down easy—silver bullets, UV exposure, good old-fashioned decapitation. They were predators, sure, but predictable ones.
Reapers were something else entirely.
The creatures moved like nightmares given flesh, their jaws splitting open to reveal feeding mechanisms that looked like they'd been designed by someone who really hated biology. They were fast, strong, and absolutely relentless.
Worse, they didn't die easily.
Luke pumped three rounds into the nearest Reaper's chest. The thing staggered, holes punched clean through its torso, then kept coming. Its wounds were already closing, flesh knitting together with obscene speed.
"UV rounds!" he shouted, switching magazines.
Umbrella's weapons division had earned their paychecks. The UV bullets were inspired by the Underworld franchise—projectiles that released concentrated ultraviolet light on impact. Against regular vampires, they were overkill.
Against Reapers, they were necessary.
The next shot hit center mass, and the Reaper screamed—a sound that would haunt Luke's dreams for weeks—before exploding into brilliant blue-white light. No regeneration from that.
Nearby, Skadi was having a different problem.
"These things are disgusting." She slammed her sword through a Reaper's skull, then kicked the body away as it kept twitching. "And they won't stay dead."
Even bisected, the creatures tried to crawl toward warm bodies. Their hunger was endless, mindless, all-consuming.
Skadi had fought Abyssal horrors in the depths of Terra's oceans. She'd thought those were the most revolting things in existence. The Reapers were making her reconsider.
Riven said nothing, just tossed a UV flashbang into a cluster of regenerating corpses. The detonation was beautiful in its brutality—concentrated sunlight burning through monsters that had never been meant to see the dawn.
Luke watched the Reapers die and thought about weapons development.
Vampires could be genetically modified. Damaskinos had proven that with the Reaper project. Which meant vampire biology wasn't supernatural—it was just unusual science. DNA that could be analyzed. Sequenced. Targeted.
Genetic weapons, he mused. Designer viruses that only affect specific genotypes. Could work on vampires.
The ethics were questionable, sure. But Luke wasn't planning to use it on humans. Just monsters.
Speaking of which—he remembered from Blade 2 that Princess Nyssa had used Reaper pheromones to track the creatures. Useful information.
"Bag the remains," he ordered the cleanup team. "Everything goes to Rhodes Island Pharmaceutical for analysis. I want those pheromones extracted and synthesized."
Hours later, Luke stood in Umbrella's underground facility, studying his newest acquisition.
Ivan Vanko had sobered up considerably during the flight. No food, no water, no alcohol—EMIYA believed in motivation through discomfort. By the time they'd landed, the Russian physicist was clear-eyed and very, very angry.
"Hello, Mr. Vanko."
Luke kept his tone pleasant, conversational. The interrogation room was spartan but not threatening—just a table, two chairs, and the subtle implication that things could get much worse if cooperation wasn't forthcoming.
"Who are you?" Vanko's English was accented but fluent. His eyes tracked Luke with the calculation of someone used to dangerous situations. "What do you want?"
Luke ignored the bird question entirely. He'd seen the movie—Vanko's attachment to that parrot was almost certainly an act, a manufactured weakness to make him seem more human. The real Vanko was cold, brilliant, and completely ruthless.
"We're HYDRA."
The name landed like a stone in still water. Vanko's expression flickered—recognition, then confusion.
"HYDRA is dead. Captain America destroyed them decades ago."
"Cut off one head, two more grow back." Luke smiled thinly. "The Captain destroyed one HYDRA. The organization itself never stopped operating."
He wasn't technically lying. The Assassins were part of HYDRA's structure now, at least on paper. And shifting blame to the larger organization had its uses.
Vanko processed this information, his analytical mind clearly working through the implications.
"You want the arc reactor technology."
Smart man. Straight to the point.
"Correct."
"Why should I give it to you?"
Luke leaned back in his chair, adopting a casual posture. "Because we can help you destroy Stark Industries. Tony Stark is dead, yes—but the company that stole your father's work still exists. The legacy that should have been yours is still in their hands."
He was deliberately withholding information. Vanko didn't know Tony had returned. The Russian had been too drunk, too isolated, too far from reliable news sources to have heard about the billionaire's miraculous survival.
For now, that ignorance was useful.
"Help me destroy them," Luke continued, "and you'll have resources. Labs. Equipment. Everything you need to build whatever you want."
Vanko was silent for a long moment, eyes never leaving Luke's face.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you stay in that cell until you change your mind. We're patient people, Mr. Vanko. Very patient."
The silence stretched. Two predators, sizing each other up.
Finally, Vanko smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression.
"Tell me more about HYDRA."