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Chapter 59: Alright, I Might Be Crazy
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[Sergeant Doakes sees you.] [Doakes is watching!]
[Guys, we've found the dick harbor butcher!]
Tony Stark stared at the annoyed, handsome maniac in his workshop. The two phrases hung in the air between them, absurd and terrifying. "Demonic being? Immortal Nazi Cult?" Tony repeated, his voice laced with incredulous sarcasm.
"The hell are you talking about? Are we talking about mutants? Some of them do look like they fell out of a bad comic book, but what does that have to do with anything?"
He'd seen them in files and the news. He knew a lot about mutants. Some had horns, scales, or glowing eyes. 'Demonic' was a stretch, but a possible descriptor for the less photogenic ones.
Adam let out a breath, the weight of the last twenty-four hours seeming to be an endless itch in his mind.
"I wish it were that simple. I really do. But no. I somehow drew the attention of an actual demon. A primordial, deal-making, soul-collecting entity from a literal hell dimension. It's… a profound headache."
[Tony's trying to apply science to a magic problem. Welcome to the Marvel Universe, Tony!]
[Adam looks so done.]
[Look at Obadiah's face! Fucking hilarious.]
[Tony's looking at him like he's crazy.]
He shook his head, as if trying to physically dislodge the cosmic dread. "You'll understand in the future. The world has layers, Tony. Deeper, darker layers that aren't easily detectible."
"We can exchange intel on that front later. For now, I'm here to make a more terrestrial deal."
Adam's gaze sharpened, all weariness burning away to reveal cold, avaricious focus.
"I want the Arc Reactor. Not just a unit. The core technology. The schematics, the materials science, the production method."
Tony threw his head back and laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. "You want the Arc Reactor? What in God's name could you possibly offer that would be worth that? You have no conception of its value. It's not just a battery; it's the future of energy. It's priceless."
"Knowledge," Adam stated, his voice flat. "Knowledge is the greatest currency. It's what allowed me to see the snake coiled at your side."
He gestured to the now unconscious form of Obadiah Stane on the floor. The latter, of course, hadn't stayed still, especially when he realized he had been exposed.
He was never not cautious, a gun with him at all times, but unfortunately, Adam was there, and when he tried to pull out his gun, a tiny mechanical spider zapped him out of reality.
"My knowledge can show you much more. Speaking of which…" Adam's head tilted with genuine curiosity. "Why haven't you taken care of him yet? Why the delay? Sentiment? Inefficiency?"
[Adam's curiosity is so clinical. He's asking why Tony didn't just delete the problem.]
[I see Adam caring less and less for the law and the natural rules of the World. I feel like he's on the way to becoming a villain.]
[True, Adam is kind of psychotic, so he will definitely make decisions heroes won't agree with, and they will oppose him.]
[Imagine, Adam versus all Earth's Heroes.]
Tony's expression tightened. He'd been wondering why Adam invited Obadiah.
Now it seemed the man had simply decided to rip the bandage off from the very start. "You... You are the problem. You ruined a month of careful data gathering, financial tracing, legal prep."
"I wasn't just going to punch him; I was going to take everything he owned in Stark Industries and shove him into a supermax cell. It's not as simple as you seem to think. Yet you ruined it."
Adam nodded repeatedly, a mocking, exaggerated gesture of understanding.
"Ah, of course. My mistake. I'm famously stupid, you see. It's all Hydra's fault. And that fucking demon. They… brain-rotted my mind. Please excuse the actions of this simple, addled child."
His face remained utterly, infuriatingly impassive.
Tony's eye twitched. The shamelessness, the glib self-deprecation that was really a weapon; it was infuriating.
This was the most dangerous kind of person: the one who didn't care about the rules of the game because he insisted on playing a different one entirely.
Mental note: Anti-Cypher protocols. Broad-spectrum. Start with psychic dampeners and tech-jamming fields.
"You're acting like a petulant child," Tony snapped. "How do you expect me to take any of this seriously?"
Adam chuckled, a dry, hollow sound. "You should file a complaint with HYDRA. It's their fault."
"They took me when I was eight. More than a decade in a concrete box. Torture. Brainwashing. Experiments. The whole… fucking… package."
He listed the horrors with the detached tone of someone reading a grocery list.
"So you have them to thank for me being 'child-minded.' Though, I'll admit, I'm rather fond of that part of myself. He's the one that keeps me entertained."
[He just trauma-dumped with the emotional weight of ordering a pizza.]
["The whole… fucking… package." The way he said it was so chilling.]
[Adam is a nemesis of a lot of people. That self-deprecating humour is still hard to deal with.]
Tony frowned, storing 'HYDRA – deep dive' in his mental task queue. The idea of a lingering Nazi science cult was repulsive and, given his recent experiences, terrifyingly plausible.
"If what you're saying is true, then… yeah, I sympathize. That's horrific. But sympathy doesn't change the value of my reactor."
Adam laughed, a real one this time, bright and startling. "Oh, no, no, no! That wasn't a plea for sympathy, Tony. That was source citation."
His smile vanished. "I'm telling you that to make it known where my information came from. The short version: HYDRA's roots are deep. They're in everything."
"And during my lovely, extended stay, I learned things. More importantly, I… cultivated a source. Someone on the inside who feeds me crumbs. Two of those crumbs have your name on them."
He pointed a finger at Tony, his smile returning, wild and unnerving. "Don't get me wrong. One of them, at least, is not going to be good news for you. But it will be fantastic news for me."
"You know why? Because it means one of the most powerful men on the planet will have a personal, burning, eternal vendetta against HYDRA."
Adam's eyes gleamed with a manic light. "The vengeful spirit in me is eating good tonight." He let out a short, raspy laugh that was all edges and no mirth.
[A SOURCE INSIDE HYDRA! Is he lying? Bluffing? Or does he really have a mole?]
[He's weaponizing Tony's future trauma. He's literally excited about it.]
[Tony's face… he knows whatever comes next is going to hurt. He believes!]
[He's bullshitting again! I know it!!]
[F Hydra!] [o7]
Tony's expression darkened, a storm cloud over Stark HQ. He didn't like this.
He didn't like Adam's madness, his casual cruelty, or the dread pooling in his own gut. "What," He said, the word clipped and hard, "Could possibly make me an 'eternal enemy' of a bunch of Nazi ghosts?"
"First," Adam began, tapping a finger beside his own cybernetic eye. "My eyes see things. I can see the reactor in your chest, Tony. A brilliant piece of work. A lifeline."
"I can also see the palladium slowly leaching into your bloodstream. Poisoning you. A death sentence you're too proud or too stubborn to tell anyone about."
Tony went very still. The party noise from below seemed to vanish. That was his secret. His silent, metallic countdown.
"That information alone would be valuable enough," Adam continued, conversational.
"But your predicament makes what I have to offer next even more so. Because HYDRA is looking for something. They've been looking for decades."
"They're looking for the blueprints for a new element. Stable, clean, powerful. Hidden by your father, Howard Stark, in a model of the Stark Expo fairgrounds."
Adam spread his hands. "I don't know where the model is. That's your family trivia. But I know it exists. Howard left you a puzzle. Solve it. It holds the key to saving yourself."
Tony surged to his feet, his chair rolling back with a screech. "What do you know about my father? What could he have possibly built that…"
His mind was reeling, connecting fragments; his father's obsessive notes, the strange, unfinished diagrams, the muttered words about a "foundation for the future."
Adam cut him off. "That," He said, pointing at Tony's chest, "Is what I want. An Arc Reactor powered by the new element. A working prototype and the schematics."
He then leaned forward, his face lit with that terrible, happy smile again.
"Speaking of Howard… the second piece of information is about him too. But first, excuse the smile. Please, take it as a sign of encroaching madness. Having a demon king as a pen pal is… destabilizing."
He grinned wider, a rictus of pure, unsettling joy that made Tony's blood run cold.
Alright, Adam would admit he may be a little crazy, but it's Hydra and Mephisto's fault.
[He's smiling, about to drop the biggest bomb in Tony's life.]
[I know what he's about to say!]
[Tony knows. He can feel it in his bones that whatever comes next will break something.]
[Damn, Adam's menacing.]
[Adam's breaking. He's losing his mind, or he's losing his limiters.]
Adam delivered on the dread.
"I heard your parents died in a car accident," Adam said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Yeah… it wasn't an accident."
He paused, letting the silence scream.
Then he let out a single, bright, utterly inappropriate laugh. "Hah! It was HYDRA! They're making it so easy for me! Making enemies everywhere! They're so fucking, cartoonishly evil, I don't even have to lift a finger! It's hilari..."
The word was cut off by Tony's fist.
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