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@madeline-gallagher-covington
Hello, my name is Madeline Anneliese Gallagher-Covington, but you can call me Maddie. My pronouns are she/her. I am 30 years old. I currently reside in an apartment in Hell's Kitchen with my dog Prince Barks-a-Lot Gallagher-Covington, I call him Prince for short. If you see me and my dog around, I encourage you to come say hello!
I was recently hired as the new DA for the City of New York. I look forward to serving the city and ensuring that it has the brightest future possible.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
a time door opens into vons apartment and she steps through carrying Prince, and giving him gentle pets.
"Madeline? you here?" she puts her helmet and pruners away in her closet.
"I'm right here, I made fish fingers and chips while you were gone—" She gasps softly, running over to Ravonna. "You got my puppy?!"
"of course I did" she grins and hands the dog over
"oh you didn't have to make anything" Ravonna takes a deep breath to smell the food "smells good"
Madeline takes the dog, petting his head, earning yapping barks and monumentally stoked tail wags. "Seems you met our guest after all, huh?"
She nods at her observation. "I made enough for you and I, there might be some left over, so you'll need something to store them in."
"'guest' is a generous way to put it"
Ravonna pulls out a few plates and cups, serving a type of soda Madeline had never seen before "i was thinking about bringing Matt over. I think he and I want to have a conversation with you"
Madeline lowered the puppy to the floor, "I never referred to you as anything less."
At the mention of a conversation her face fell like a petulant child, she shook her head. "There's no need for that, I've already decided forego the trial and take a deal."
"I'm referring to how you treated me"
"that's what i wanted to talk to you about. I'm gonna call him over." her words are short and simple as she opens a time door for Matt before plating the door Madeline made.
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
▪︎ Matt steps through the time door, waving at them.
⠦⠠⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕⠲⠴
"Hello."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"hey Matt, we were about to eat. we're back at my place on Knowhere, are you hungry?"
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
⠦⠠⠔ ⠉⠁⠝ ⠑⠁⠞⠲⠴
"I can eat."
▪︎ Matt walks over to the table, white cane clicking on the floor with each step, he finds a chair and collapses the cane when he sits down, tucking it in his pocket.
Ravonna serves the three plates of food and then three drinks before sitting.
"are you gonna say grace, Matt?"
▪︎ Matt smiles and nods, folding his hands together, and bowing his head.
⠦⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠥⠎⠂ ⠠⠇⠕⠗⠙⠂ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠞⠓⠑⠎⠑ ⠠⠞⠓⠽ ⠛⠊⠋⠞⠎⠂ ⠺⠓⠊⠉⠓ ⠺⠑ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠁⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠗⠑⠉⠑⠊⠧⠑ ⠋⠗⠕⠍ ⠠⠞⠓⠽ ⠃⠕⠥⠝⠞⠽⠂ ⠞⠓⠗⠕⠥⠛⠓ ⠠⠠⠉ ⠓⠗⠊⠎⠞ ⠕⠥⠗ ⠠⠇⠕⠗⠙⠲ ⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠓⠁⠝⠙⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠏⠗⠑⠏⠁⠗⠑⠙ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠋⠕⠕⠙⠲ ⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠥⠎ ⠁⠎ ⠺⠑ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠁⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠑⠁⠞ ⠊⠞ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠁⠇⠇⠕⠺ ⠥⠎ ⠞⠕ ⠥⠎⠑ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠑⠝⠑⠗⠛⠽ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠊⠞ ⠛⠊⠧⠑⠎ ⠥⠎ ⠞⠕ ⠙⠕ ⠠⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠺⠊⠇⠇⠲ ⠁⠍⠑⠝⠲⠴
"Bless us, Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Bless the hands that prepared this food. Bless us as we are about to eat it and allow us to use the energy that it gives us to do Your will. Amen."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline goes to join them at the table, she sits down and bows her head as well, interlocking her fingers with one another while listening to Matthew's prayer. The familiar word are a source of comfort. "Amen." She joins in, lifting her head, and letting her hands fall into her lap.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna tilts her head down as well while Matt prays. she doesn't remember ever practicing a religion but she always appreciated the idea of faith, of trust in a higher power. it was a comforting thought "amen"
Ravonna starts to eat quietly
"didn't think I'd be in this situation a few days ago"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
⠦⠠⠔ ⠞⠓⠊⠝⠅ ⠺⠑ ⠉⠁⠝ ⠁⠇⠇ ⠎⠁⠽ ⠎⠕⠍⠑⠞⠓⠊⠝⠛ ⠁⠇⠕⠝⠛ ⠞⠓⠕⠎⠑ ⠇⠊⠝⠑⠎⠲⠴
"I think we can all say something along those lines."
▪︎ Matt takes a bite of his food.
⠦⠠⠋⠊⠎⠓ ⠎⠞⠊⠉⠅⠎⠂ ⠝⠊⠉⠑⠖⠴
"Fish sticks, nice!"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"they're good" she nods
"so Matt, Madeline has told me she's very intent on going to prison with no trial. i was hoping to know your thoughts on this"
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
⠦⠠⠗⠑⠎⠏⠑⠉⠞⠋⠥⠇⠇⠽⠂ ⠠⠍⠎⠲ ⠠⠛⠁⠇⠇⠁⠛⠓⠑⠗⠤⠉⠕⠧⠊⠝⠛⠞⠕⠝⠂ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠎⠕⠥⠝⠙⠎ ⠇⠊⠅⠑ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠎⠞⠥⠏⠊⠙⠑⠎⠞ ⠊⠙⠑⠁ ⠰⠠⠔⠓⠁⠧⠑ ⠑⠧⠑⠗ ⠓⠑⠁⠗⠙⠲⠴
"Respectfully, Ms. Gallagher-Covington, that sounds like the stupidest idea I have ever heard."
▪︎ He eats a french fry, letting his words hang in the air.
⠦⠠⠛⠊⠧⠊⠝⠛ ⠥⠏ ⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠋⠊⠛⠓⠞ ⠃⠑⠋⠕⠗⠑ ⠽⠕⠥⠄⠧⠑ ⠎⠞⠁⠗⠞⠑⠙⠂ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠙⠕⠝⠄⠞ ⠙⠕ ⠞⠓⠁⠞⠂ ⠑⠎⠏⠑⠉⠊⠁⠇⠇⠽ ⠃⠑⠋⠕⠗⠑ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠋⠊⠝⠙ ⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠓⠑⠗⠑⠄⠎ ⠝⠕ ⠋⠊⠛⠓⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠃⠑⠛⠊⠝ ⠺⠊⠞⠓⠲ ⠠⠛⠊⠧⠑⠝ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠗⠑⠉⠑⠝⠞ ⠓⠁⠗⠙⠎⠓⠊⠏ ⠽⠕⠥⠄⠧⠑ ⠑⠝⠙⠥⠗⠑⠙⠂ ⠰⠠⠔⠊⠝⠞⠑⠝⠙ ⠞⠕ ⠙⠗⠕⠏ ⠍⠽ ⠓⠁⠇⠋ ⠕⠋ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠉⠓⠁⠗⠛⠑⠎ ⠁⠛⠁⠊⠝⠎⠞ ⠽⠕⠥⠲⠴
"Giving up your fight before you've started, you don't do that, especially before you find out there's no fight to begin with. Given the recent hardship you've endured, I intend to drop my half of the charges against you."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
@madeline-gallagher-covington
"then we're in agreement. I'm also dropping my half of the charges"
Ravonna gives the woman a small nod
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"That... I—" Madeline froze, dropping the fish finger she was holding on her plate. Disbelief was written on her face, etched into the fiber of her being. "What?" Her eyes darted from Matthew to Ravonna. "Wait, you're serious?" She sniffed, dabbing her eyes with her napkin. "Thank you."
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
⠦⠠⠽⠕⠥⠄⠗⠑ ⠺⠑⠇⠉⠕⠍⠑⠂ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠍⠽ ⠕⠝⠇⠽ ⠎⠞⠊⠏⠥⠇⠁⠞⠊⠕⠝ ⠺⠊⠞⠓ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠊⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠙⠕⠝⠄⠞ ⠛⠕ ⠁⠗⠕⠥⠝⠙ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠅⠊⠙⠝⠁⠏ ⠕⠞⠓⠑⠗ ⠏⠑⠕⠏⠇⠑ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠏⠥⠞ ⠞⠓⠑⠍ ⠊⠝ ⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠃⠁⠎⠑⠍⠑⠝⠞⠲ ⠠⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠺⠁⠎ ⠗⠑⠁⠇⠇⠽ ⠝⠕⠞ ⠓⠕⠺ ⠰⠠⠔⠺⠁⠝⠞⠑⠙ ⠞⠕ ⠎⠏⠑⠝⠙ ⠠⠝⠑⠺ ⠠⠽⠑⠁⠗⠎ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠞⠓⠁⠞⠄⠎ ⠝⠕⠞ ⠓⠕⠺ ⠰⠠⠔⠺⠁⠝⠞ ⠁⠝⠽⠕⠝⠑ ⠑⠇⠎⠑ ⠞⠕ ⠎⠏⠑⠝⠙ ⠞⠓⠑⠊⠗ ⠞⠊⠍⠑ ⠑⠊⠞⠓⠑⠗⠲ ⠠⠙⠑⠁⠇⠦⠴
"You're welcome, but my only stipulation with this is that you don't go around and kidnap other people and put them in your basement. That was really not how I wanted to spend New Years and that's not how I want anyone else to spend their time either. Deal?"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
She nodded taking in a deep, but shaky breath. "Yes, we do... Deal."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
a time door opens into vons apartment and she steps through carrying Prince, and giving him gentle pets.
"Madeline? you here?" she puts her helmet and pruners away in her closet.
"I'm right here, I made fish fingers and chips while you were gone—" She gasps softly, running over to Ravonna. "You got my puppy?!"
"of course I did" she grins and hands the dog over
"oh you didn't have to make anything" Ravonna takes a deep breath to smell the food "smells good"
Madeline takes the dog, petting his head, earning yapping barks and monumentally stoked tail wags. "Seems you met our guest after all, huh?"
She nods at her observation. "I made enough for you and I, there might be some left over, so you'll need something to store them in."
"'guest' is a generous way to put it"
Ravonna pulls out a few plates and cups, serving a type of soda Madeline had never seen before "i was thinking about bringing Matt over. I think he and I want to have a conversation with you"
Madeline lowered the puppy to the floor, "I never referred to you as anything less."
At the mention of a conversation her face fell like a petulant child, she shook her head. "There's no need for that, I've already decided forego the trial and take a deal."
"I'm referring to how you treated me"
"that's what i wanted to talk to you about. I'm gonna call him over." her words are short and simple as she opens a time door for Matt before plating the door Madeline made.
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
▪︎ Matt steps through the time door, waving at them.
⠦⠠⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕⠲⠴
"Hello."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"hey Matt, we were about to eat. we're back at my place on Knowhere, are you hungry?"
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
⠦⠠⠔ ⠉⠁⠝ ⠑⠁⠞⠲⠴
"I can eat."
▪︎ Matt walks over to the table, white cane clicking on the floor with each step, he finds a chair and collapses the cane when he sits down, tucking it in his pocket.
Ravonna serves the three plates of food and then three drinks before sitting.
"are you gonna say grace, Matt?"
▪︎ Matt smiles and nods, folding his hands together, and bowing his head.
⠦⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠥⠎⠂ ⠠⠇⠕⠗⠙⠂ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠞⠓⠑⠎⠑ ⠠⠞⠓⠽ ⠛⠊⠋⠞⠎⠂ ⠺⠓⠊⠉⠓ ⠺⠑ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠁⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠗⠑⠉⠑⠊⠧⠑ ⠋⠗⠕⠍ ⠠⠞⠓⠽ ⠃⠕⠥⠝⠞⠽⠂ ⠞⠓⠗⠕⠥⠛⠓ ⠠⠠⠉ ⠓⠗⠊⠎⠞ ⠕⠥⠗ ⠠⠇⠕⠗⠙⠲ ⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠓⠁⠝⠙⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠏⠗⠑⠏⠁⠗⠑⠙ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠋⠕⠕⠙⠲ ⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠥⠎ ⠁⠎ ⠺⠑ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠁⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠑⠁⠞ ⠊⠞ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠁⠇⠇⠕⠺ ⠥⠎ ⠞⠕ ⠥⠎⠑ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠑⠝⠑⠗⠛⠽ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠊⠞ ⠛⠊⠧⠑⠎ ⠥⠎ ⠞⠕ ⠙⠕ ⠠⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠺⠊⠇⠇⠲ ⠁⠍⠑⠝⠲⠴
"Bless us, Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Bless the hands that prepared this food. Bless us as we are about to eat it and allow us to use the energy that it gives us to do Your will. Amen."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline goes to join them at the table, she sits down and bows her head as well, interlocking her fingers with one another while listening to Matthew's prayer. The familiar word are a source of comfort. "Amen." She joins in, lifting her head, and letting her hands fall into her lap.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna tilts her head down as well while Matt prays. she doesn't remember ever practicing a religion but she always appreciated the idea of faith, of trust in a higher power. it was a comforting thought "amen"
Ravonna starts to eat quietly
"didn't think I'd be in this situation a few days ago"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
⠦⠠⠔ ⠞⠓⠊⠝⠅ ⠺⠑ ⠉⠁⠝ ⠁⠇⠇ ⠎⠁⠽ ⠎⠕⠍⠑⠞⠓⠊⠝⠛ ⠁⠇⠕⠝⠛ ⠞⠓⠕⠎⠑ ⠇⠊⠝⠑⠎⠲⠴
"I think we can all say something along those lines."
▪︎ Matt takes a bite of his food.
⠦⠠⠋⠊⠎⠓ ⠎⠞⠊⠉⠅⠎⠂ ⠝⠊⠉⠑⠖⠴
"Fish sticks, nice!"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"they're good" she nods
"so Matt, Madeline has told me she's very intent on going to prison with no trial. i was hoping to know your thoughts on this"
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
⠦⠠⠗⠑⠎⠏⠑⠉⠞⠋⠥⠇⠇⠽⠂ ⠠⠍⠎⠲ ⠠⠛⠁⠇⠇⠁⠛⠓⠑⠗⠤⠉⠕⠧⠊⠝⠛⠞⠕⠝⠂ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠎⠕⠥⠝⠙⠎ ⠇⠊⠅⠑ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠎⠞⠥⠏⠊⠙⠑⠎⠞ ⠊⠙⠑⠁ ⠰⠠⠔⠓⠁⠧⠑ ⠑⠧⠑⠗ ⠓⠑⠁⠗⠙⠲⠴
"Respectfully, Ms. Gallagher-Covington, that sounds like the stupidest idea I have ever heard."
▪︎ He eats a french fry, letting his words hang in the air.
⠦⠠⠛⠊⠧⠊⠝⠛ ⠥⠏ ⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠋⠊⠛⠓⠞ ⠃⠑⠋⠕⠗⠑ ⠽⠕⠥⠄⠧⠑ ⠎⠞⠁⠗⠞⠑⠙⠂ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠙⠕⠝⠄⠞ ⠙⠕ ⠞⠓⠁⠞⠂ ⠑⠎⠏⠑⠉⠊⠁⠇⠇⠽ ⠃⠑⠋⠕⠗⠑ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠋⠊⠝⠙ ⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠓⠑⠗⠑⠄⠎ ⠝⠕ ⠋⠊⠛⠓⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠃⠑⠛⠊⠝ ⠺⠊⠞⠓⠲ ⠠⠛⠊⠧⠑⠝ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠗⠑⠉⠑⠝⠞ ⠓⠁⠗⠙⠎⠓⠊⠏ ⠽⠕⠥⠄⠧⠑ ⠑⠝⠙⠥⠗⠑⠙⠂ ⠰⠠⠔⠊⠝⠞⠑⠝⠙ ⠞⠕ ⠙⠗⠕⠏ ⠍⠽ ⠓⠁⠇⠋ ⠕⠋ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠉⠓⠁⠗⠛⠑⠎ ⠁⠛⠁⠊⠝⠎⠞ ⠽⠕⠥⠲⠴
"Giving up your fight before you've started, you don't do that, especially before you find out there's no fight to begin with. Given the recent hardship you've endured, I intend to drop my half of the charges against you."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
@madeline-gallagher-covington
"then we're in agreement. I'm also dropping my half of the charges"
Ravonna gives the woman a small nod
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"That... I—" Madeline froze, dropping the fish finger she was holding on her plate. Disbelief was written on her face, etched into the fiber of her being. "What?" Her eyes darted from Matthew to Ravonna. "Wait, you're serious?" She sniffed, dabbing her eyes with her napkin. "Thank you."
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
a time door opens into vons apartment and she steps through carrying Prince, and giving him gentle pets.
"Madeline? you here?" she puts her helmet and pruners away in her closet.
"I'm right here, I made fish fingers and chips while you were gone—" She gasps softly, running over to Ravonna. "You got my puppy?!"
"of course I did" she grins and hands the dog over
"oh you didn't have to make anything" Ravonna takes a deep breath to smell the food "smells good"
Madeline takes the dog, petting his head, earning yapping barks and monumentally stoked tail wags. "Seems you met our guest after all, huh?"
She nods at her observation. "I made enough for you and I, there might be some left over, so you'll need something to store them in."
"'guest' is a generous way to put it"
Ravonna pulls out a few plates and cups, serving a type of soda Madeline had never seen before "i was thinking about bringing Matt over. I think he and I want to have a conversation with you"
Madeline lowered the puppy to the floor, "I never referred to you as anything less."
At the mention of a conversation her face fell like a petulant child, she shook her head. "There's no need for that, I've already decided forego the trial and take a deal."
"I'm referring to how you treated me"
"that's what i wanted to talk to you about. I'm gonna call him over." her words are short and simple as she opens a time door for Matt before plating the door Madeline made.
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
▪︎ Matt steps through the time door, waving at them.
⠦⠠⠓⠑⠇⠇⠕⠲⠴
"Hello."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
"hey Matt, we were about to eat. we're back at my place on Knowhere, are you hungry?"
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
⠦⠠⠔ ⠉⠁⠝ ⠑⠁⠞⠲⠴
"I can eat."
▪︎ Matt walks over to the table, white cane clicking on the floor with each step, he finds a chair and collapses the cane when he sits down, tucking it in his pocket.
Ravonna serves the three plates of food and then three drinks before sitting.
"are you gonna say grace, Matt?"
▪︎ Matt smiles and nods, folding his hands together, and bowing his head.
⠦⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠥⠎⠂ ⠠⠇⠕⠗⠙⠂ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠞⠓⠑⠎⠑ ⠠⠞⠓⠽ ⠛⠊⠋⠞⠎⠂ ⠺⠓⠊⠉⠓ ⠺⠑ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠁⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠗⠑⠉⠑⠊⠧⠑ ⠋⠗⠕⠍ ⠠⠞⠓⠽ ⠃⠕⠥⠝⠞⠽⠂ ⠞⠓⠗⠕⠥⠛⠓ ⠠⠠⠉ ⠓⠗⠊⠎⠞ ⠕⠥⠗ ⠠⠇⠕⠗⠙⠲ ⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠓⠁⠝⠙⠎ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠏⠗⠑⠏⠁⠗⠑⠙ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠋⠕⠕⠙⠲ ⠠⠃⠇⠑⠎⠎ ⠥⠎ ⠁⠎ ⠺⠑ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠁⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠞⠕ ⠑⠁⠞ ⠊⠞ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠁⠇⠇⠕⠺ ⠥⠎ ⠞⠕ ⠥⠎⠑ ⠞⠓⠑ ⠑⠝⠑⠗⠛⠽ ⠞⠓⠁⠞ ⠊⠞ ⠛⠊⠧⠑⠎ ⠥⠎ ⠞⠕ ⠙⠕ ⠠⠽⠕⠥⠗ ⠺⠊⠇⠇⠲ ⠁⠍⠑⠝⠲⠴
"Bless us, Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Bless the hands that prepared this food. Bless us as we are about to eat it and allow us to use the energy that it gives us to do Your will. Amen."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline goes to join them at the table, she sits down and bows her head as well, interlocking her fingers with one another while listening to Matthew's prayer. The familiar word are a source of comfort. "Amen." She joins in, lifting her head, and letting her hands fall into her lap.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
a time door opens into vons apartment and she steps through carrying Prince, and giving him gentle pets.
"Madeline? you here?" she puts her helmet and pruners away in her closet.
"I'm right here, I made fish fingers and chips while you were gone—" She gasps softly, running over to Ravonna. "You got my puppy?!"
"of course I did" she grins and hands the dog over
"oh you didn't have to make anything" Ravonna takes a deep breath to smell the food "smells good"
Madeline takes the dog, petting his head, earning yapping barks and monumentally stoked tail wags. "Seems you met our guest after all, huh?"
She nods at her observation. "I made enough for you and I, there might be some left over, so you'll need something to store them in."
"'guest' is a generous way to put it"
Ravonna pulls out a few plates and cups, serving a type of soda Madeline had never seen before "i was thinking about bringing Matt over. I think he and I want to have a conversation with you"
Madeline lowered the puppy to the floor, "I never referred to you as anything less."
At the mention of a conversation her face fell like a petulant child, she shook her head. "There's no need for that, I've already decided forego the trial and take a deal."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
a time door opens into vons apartment and she steps through carrying Prince, and giving him gentle pets.
"Madeline? you here?" she puts her helmet and pruners away in her closet.
"I'm right here, I made fish fingers and chips while you were gone—" She gasps softly, running over to Ravonna. "You got my puppy?!"
"of course I did" she grins and hands the dog over
"oh you didn't have to make anything" Ravonna takes a deep breath to smell the food "smells good"
Madeline takes the dog, petting his head, earning yapping barks and monumentally stoked tail wags. "Seems you met our guest after all, huh?"
She nods at her observation. "I made enough for you and I, there might be some left over, so you'll need something to store them in."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer
a time door opens into vons apartment and she steps through carrying Prince, and giving him gentle pets.
"Madeline? you here?" she puts her helmet and pruners away in her closet.
"I'm right here, I made fish fingers and chips while you were gone—" She gasps softly, running over to Ravonna. "You got my puppy?!"
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
Madeline was barely conscious, wincing softly when Ravonna put her down. She turned away from the bright lights overhead. Slowly the pain was alleviated, then gone, the waste that had covered her vanished.
She sat up, looking down to her hands and then tentatively to her foot. All in one piece, like magic. "... Thank you." She muttered, sitting up.
A surge of energy goes through tower, the lights flicker for a minute. The file that held Tony's memory pops up on Feya's visor, one additional message, follows the original coding.
[ACTIVATED]
" Tony Stark approaching! "
Wednesday chimes suddenly, the clang of metal approaches the room. Mark I stops in the doorway. "Hi everyone."
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist
immediately that same second, a time door opens and Ravonna holds the mind stone tightly in her fist "I GOT IT!"
she looks over to see stark "oh fuck!! wait!? i put you in a time cell in the woods?!?!?"
she runs over to Matt's body "come on come on come on, mind stone, fix him up"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @we-are-existence
the mind stone, sensing the urgency of the situation glows strongly and Matt's head starts to glow with a matching yellow light.
"it's done"
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi
"Yes and no. I'm a contingency plan, actually. For myself." The suit opens revealing no one inside.
"I was activated until I followed the other suit out to space. I can't go to space, I'm made for terrestrial travel only. The other suit can because that's where it originates from. I took the risk, paid the price, but you see it had something really important in it. Me. I contain all of my memories up to the day that this happened. We were fighting Black Lama. If you ever decide to fight him. Don't. That thing took over, shut me out of my body. I tried to reason with myself to get my body back. Reasoning with myself doesn't work out cause I'm always right, until I'm not."
"I developed this memory device to try to erase him and replace myself with him so I could get my consciousness back where it belongs. That only works when I have a way to get my body back, which I hadn't figured out how to do yet. The other me keeps having Wednesday shut me down whenever I get close."
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
Feya listens closely, her body relaxing as he explains. They were right. The thing that's in his body isn't Tony. It's some alien.. literally. She shoves the stones in her pocket and walks up to the empty suit- Tony.
Of course he would risk it all. Risk everything just to take down some villain... only to fail in some way. It reminds her of what happened with the blip. She wasn't blipped, but she had to watch people around her fade into nothing.
"Tony," she begins, actually calling him by his first name. "Are you able to work with me to override Wednesday?" She asks. She takes off one of her earpieces, the hologram warping with it.
"In another universe you and I made this device." Feya holds it out for the suit to take.
@karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @thesuperiorstark
Karen hesitates, but the voice coming from the Mark 1 sounds like Tony Stark. And, more importantly, sounds sane.
Stark could be trying to trick them, yes, but this wasn't his style. He wouldn't pretend to be a hero on their side, his ego was too big for that. This felt like the real deal.
She turns toward Rav, who is holding Matt's body and also holding the time door open for the rest of them.
"All right, we need to get the targets out of here," Karen declares. "This is Stark's stronghold and the longer we stay here, the more likely he'll catch us, like mice in a trap, when he gets back." She holds out her hand to help Madeline down from the table. "Go to Ravonna over there, her door will take you out of here."
She glances at Feya, not wanting to leaving her partner in this whole thing. "If you and Stark.. uh... I mean, if you and the Mark 1 here can overpower Stark's body when it shows up, I can stay and help distract him. And Rav will help." She feels with certainty that Ravonna will get Matt and Madeline to safety and then will be right back for the battle.
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
"is anyone coming or am I just taking these two?" she nods to Matt and Madeline
"oh hey you're all better!" shes shocked at Madeline's state but waves her over "let's get you out of here"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark
▪︎ Matt lays limp in her arms, he's either extremely tired or suffering after effects from the symbiote.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @thesuperiorstark @karenpage-journalist @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline followed Ravonna, glancing to the heroes over her shoulder. "This is a blooming mess." She commented, "Where are we headed?"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna looks back too "well, we made a lot more progress in 20 minutes than I did with an hour"
"we're going to my place. it was the fastest option"
she leads her through the time door and suddenly they're in a tiny apartment. it looks a little run down but like it's been decorated as a home. a tiny bed and a desk. a kitchen across the way and three doors for the closet and bathroom and exit.
she rests Matt on the bed and finally takes off her helmet. to say she looks like death is an understatement
she opens her closet and finds a few clothes for each of them since her clothes are ruined and he's just wearing a medical robe.
"here, you can change in the bathroom" she holds out some sweatpants, socks and a grey long sleeve shirt for her.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
She shakes her head, gently pushing the clothes away. "I... I can't. I have to go back to the police, turn myself in. I-I'm supposed to be in jail, remember. For what I did to you and Matthew."
"yeah I remember" she doesn't let up and nods for her to take the clothes
"Are you hungry? I got some kablooie and some zarg-nuts" she offers
"I have a dog... Prince Barks-a-Lot. Answers to Prince, you could take care of him for me ... If he's not already dead in my house. Would have lost everything then." She goes to the door, unlocking it. "Funny how life works."
"yeah of course" Ravonna nods "is he friendly?"
"oh hey, we're not on earth" as soon as she opens the door, she sees she's on a completely alien world. it looks nice though.
▪︎ Matt groans softly, eyes opening.
⠦⠠⠋⠕⠛⠛⠽⠲⠲⠲⠦⠴
"Foggy...?"
Ravonna looks back at Matt "he's awake"
she lets out a small sigh of relief and tosses some clothes for him on the bed. a large black sweater and black sweatpants. "you can wear this"
@verygoodlawyer @madeline-gallagher-covington
▪︎ He catches them, sitting up, but he's too wrapped up in everything to care.
⠦⠠⠔⠎ ⠎⠓⠑ ⠕⠅⠁⠽⠦ ⠠⠅⠁⠗⠑⠝ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠠⠚⠑⠎⠎⠲⠲⠲⠦ ⠠⠁⠗⠑ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠕⠅⠁⠽⠂ ⠠⠗⠁⠧⠕⠝⠝⠁⠦⠴
"Is she okay? Karen and Jess...? Are you okay, Ravonna?"
"Oh that's buggered..." She whispered, taking in the sight of her first extraterrestrial skyline. She stepped back into the apartment and slammed the door shut, now proper spooked. "That's not Earth."
"You... Ravonna, are you Doctor Who? I went and kidnapped a bloody space alien... Where are we? Is this Gallifrey or something?"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
Madeline was barely conscious, wincing softly when Ravonna put her down. She turned away from the bright lights overhead. Slowly the pain was alleviated, then gone, the waste that had covered her vanished.
She sat up, looking down to her hands and then tentatively to her foot. All in one piece, like magic. "... Thank you." She muttered, sitting up.
A surge of energy goes through tower, the lights flicker for a minute. The file that held Tony's memory pops up on Feya's visor, one additional message, follows the original coding.
[ACTIVATED]
" Tony Stark approaching! "
Wednesday chimes suddenly, the clang of metal approaches the room. Mark I stops in the doorway. "Hi everyone."
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist
immediately that same second, a time door opens and Ravonna holds the mind stone tightly in her fist "I GOT IT!"
she looks over to see stark "oh fuck!! wait!? i put you in a time cell in the woods?!?!?"
she runs over to Matt's body "come on come on come on, mind stone, fix him up"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @we-are-existence
the mind stone, sensing the urgency of the situation glows strongly and Matt's head starts to glow with a matching yellow light.
"it's done"
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi
"Yes and no. I'm a contingency plan, actually. For myself." The suit opens revealing no one inside.
"I was activated until I followed the other suit out to space. I can't go to space, I'm made for terrestrial travel only. The other suit can because that's where it originates from. I took the risk, paid the price, but you see it had something really important in it. Me. I contain all of my memories up to the day that this happened. We were fighting Black Lama. If you ever decide to fight him. Don't. That thing took over, shut me out of my body. I tried to reason with myself to get my body back. Reasoning with myself doesn't work out cause I'm always right, until I'm not."
"I developed this memory device to try to erase him and replace myself with him so I could get my consciousness back where it belongs. That only works when I have a way to get my body back, which I hadn't figured out how to do yet. The other me keeps having Wednesday shut me down whenever I get close."
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
Feya listens closely, her body relaxing as he explains. They were right. The thing that's in his body isn't Tony. It's some alien.. literally. She shoves the stones in her pocket and walks up to the empty suit- Tony.
Of course he would risk it all. Risk everything just to take down some villain... only to fail in some way. It reminds her of what happened with the blip. She wasn't blipped, but she had to watch people around her fade into nothing.
"Tony," she begins, actually calling him by his first name. "Are you able to work with me to override Wednesday?" She asks. She takes off one of her earpieces, the hologram warping with it.
"In another universe you and I made this device." Feya holds it out for the suit to take.
@karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @thesuperiorstark
Karen hesitates, but the voice coming from the Mark 1 sounds like Tony Stark. And, more importantly, sounds sane.
Stark could be trying to trick them, yes, but this wasn't his style. He wouldn't pretend to be a hero on their side, his ego was too big for that. This felt like the real deal.
She turns toward Rav, who is holding Matt's body and also holding the time door open for the rest of them.
"All right, we need to get the targets out of here," Karen declares. "This is Stark's stronghold and the longer we stay here, the more likely he'll catch us, like mice in a trap, when he gets back." She holds out her hand to help Madeline down from the table. "Go to Ravonna over there, her door will take you out of here."
She glances at Feya, not wanting to leaving her partner in this whole thing. "If you and Stark.. uh... I mean, if you and the Mark 1 here can overpower Stark's body when it shows up, I can stay and help distract him. And Rav will help." She feels with certainty that Ravonna will get Matt and Madeline to safety and then will be right back for the battle.
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
"is anyone coming or am I just taking these two?" she nods to Matt and Madeline
"oh hey you're all better!" shes shocked at Madeline's state but waves her over "let's get you out of here"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark
▪︎ Matt lays limp in her arms, he's either extremely tired or suffering after effects from the symbiote.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @thesuperiorstark @karenpage-journalist @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline followed Ravonna, glancing to the heroes over her shoulder. "This is a blooming mess." She commented, "Where are we headed?"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna looks back too "well, we made a lot more progress in 20 minutes than I did with an hour"
"we're going to my place. it was the fastest option"
she leads her through the time door and suddenly they're in a tiny apartment. it looks a little run down but like it's been decorated as a home. a tiny bed and a desk. a kitchen across the way and three doors for the closet and bathroom and exit.
she rests Matt on the bed and finally takes off her helmet. to say she looks like death is an understatement
she opens her closet and finds a few clothes for each of them since her clothes are ruined and he's just wearing a medical robe.
"here, you can change in the bathroom" she holds out some sweatpants, socks and a grey long sleeve shirt for her.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
She shakes her head, gently pushing the clothes away. "I... I can't. I have to go back to the police, turn myself in. I-I'm supposed to be in jail, remember. For what I did to you and Matthew."
"yeah I remember" she doesn't let up and nods for her to take the clothes
"Are you hungry? I got some kablooie and some zarg-nuts" she offers
"I have a dog... Prince Barks-a-Lot. Answers to Prince, you could take care of him for me ... If he's not already dead in my house. Would have lost everything then." She goes to the door, unlocking it. "Funny how life works."
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
Madeline was barely conscious, wincing softly when Ravonna put her down. She turned away from the bright lights overhead. Slowly the pain was alleviated, then gone, the waste that had covered her vanished.
She sat up, looking down to her hands and then tentatively to her foot. All in one piece, like magic. "... Thank you." She muttered, sitting up.
A surge of energy goes through tower, the lights flicker for a minute. The file that held Tony's memory pops up on Feya's visor, one additional message, follows the original coding.
[ACTIVATED]
" Tony Stark approaching! "
Wednesday chimes suddenly, the clang of metal approaches the room. Mark I stops in the doorway. "Hi everyone."
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist
immediately that same second, a time door opens and Ravonna holds the mind stone tightly in her fist "I GOT IT!"
she looks over to see stark "oh fuck!! wait!? i put you in a time cell in the woods?!?!?"
she runs over to Matt's body "come on come on come on, mind stone, fix him up"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @we-are-existence
the mind stone, sensing the urgency of the situation glows strongly and Matt's head starts to glow with a matching yellow light.
"it's done"
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi
"Yes and no. I'm a contingency plan, actually. For myself." The suit opens revealing no one inside.
"I was activated until I followed the other suit out to space. I can't go to space, I'm made for terrestrial travel only. The other suit can because that's where it originates from. I took the risk, paid the price, but you see it had something really important in it. Me. I contain all of my memories up to the day that this happened. We were fighting Black Lama. If you ever decide to fight him. Don't. That thing took over, shut me out of my body. I tried to reason with myself to get my body back. Reasoning with myself doesn't work out cause I'm always right, until I'm not."
"I developed this memory device to try to erase him and replace myself with him so I could get my consciousness back where it belongs. That only works when I have a way to get my body back, which I hadn't figured out how to do yet. The other me keeps having Wednesday shut me down whenever I get close."
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
Feya listens closely, her body relaxing as he explains. They were right. The thing that's in his body isn't Tony. It's some alien.. literally. She shoves the stones in her pocket and walks up to the empty suit- Tony.
Of course he would risk it all. Risk everything just to take down some villain... only to fail in some way. It reminds her of what happened with the blip. She wasn't blipped, but she had to watch people around her fade into nothing.
"Tony," she begins, actually calling him by his first name. "Are you able to work with me to override Wednesday?" She asks. She takes off one of her earpieces, the hologram warping with it.
"In another universe you and I made this device." Feya holds it out for the suit to take.
@karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @thesuperiorstark
Karen hesitates, but the voice coming from the Mark 1 sounds like Tony Stark. And, more importantly, sounds sane.
Stark could be trying to trick them, yes, but this wasn't his style. He wouldn't pretend to be a hero on their side, his ego was too big for that. This felt like the real deal.
She turns toward Rav, who is holding Matt's body and also holding the time door open for the rest of them.
"All right, we need to get the targets out of here," Karen declares. "This is Stark's stronghold and the longer we stay here, the more likely he'll catch us, like mice in a trap, when he gets back." She holds out her hand to help Madeline down from the table. "Go to Ravonna over there, her door will take you out of here."
She glances at Feya, not wanting to leaving her partner in this whole thing. "If you and Stark.. uh... I mean, if you and the Mark 1 here can overpower Stark's body when it shows up, I can stay and help distract him. And Rav will help." She feels with certainty that Ravonna will get Matt and Madeline to safety and then will be right back for the battle.
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
"is anyone coming or am I just taking these two?" she nods to Matt and Madeline
"oh hey you're all better!" shes shocked at Madeline's state but waves her over "let's get you out of here"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark
▪︎ Matt lays limp in her arms, he's either extremely tired or suffering after effects from the symbiote.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @thesuperiorstark @karenpage-journalist @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline followed Ravonna, glancing to the heroes over her shoulder. "This is a blooming mess." She commented, "Where are we headed?"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna looks back too "well, we made a lot more progress in 20 minutes than I did with an hour"
"we're going to my place. it was the fastest option"
she leads her through the time door and suddenly they're in a tiny apartment. it looks a little run down but like it's been decorated as a home. a tiny bed and a desk. a kitchen across the way and three doors for the closet and bathroom and exit.
she rests Matt on the bed and finally takes off her helmet. to say she looks like death is an understatement
she opens her closet and finds a few clothes for each of them since her clothes are ruined and he's just wearing a medical robe.
"here, you can change in the bathroom" she holds out some sweatpants, socks and a grey long sleeve shirt for her.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
She shakes her head, gently pushing the clothes away. "I... I can't. I have to go back to the police, turn myself in. I-I'm supposed to be in jail, remember. For what I did to you and Matthew."
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
Madeline was barely conscious, wincing softly when Ravonna put her down. She turned away from the bright lights overhead. Slowly the pain was alleviated, then gone, the waste that had covered her vanished.
She sat up, looking down to her hands and then tentatively to her foot. All in one piece, like magic. "... Thank you." She muttered, sitting up.
A surge of energy goes through tower, the lights flicker for a minute. The file that held Tony's memory pops up on Feya's visor, one additional message, follows the original coding.
[ACTIVATED]
" Tony Stark approaching! "
Wednesday chimes suddenly, the clang of metal approaches the room. Mark I stops in the doorway. "Hi everyone."
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist
immediately that same second, a time door opens and Ravonna holds the mind stone tightly in her fist "I GOT IT!"
she looks over to see stark "oh fuck!! wait!? i put you in a time cell in the woods?!?!?"
she runs over to Matt's body "come on come on come on, mind stone, fix him up"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @we-are-existence
the mind stone, sensing the urgency of the situation glows strongly and Matt's head starts to glow with a matching yellow light.
"it's done"
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi
"Yes and no. I'm a contingency plan, actually. For myself." The suit opens revealing no one inside.
"I was activated until I followed the other suit out to space. I can't go to space, I'm made for terrestrial travel only. The other suit can because that's where it originates from. I took the risk, paid the price, but you see it had something really important in it. Me. I contain all of my memories up to the day that this happened. We were fighting Black Lama. If you ever decide to fight him. Don't. That thing took over, shut me out of my body. I tried to reason with myself to get my body back. Reasoning with myself doesn't work out cause I'm always right, until I'm not."
"I developed this memory device to try to erase him and replace myself with him so I could get my consciousness back where it belongs. That only works when I have a way to get my body back, which I hadn't figured out how to do yet. The other me keeps having Wednesday shut me down whenever I get close."
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
Feya listens closely, her body relaxing as he explains. They were right. The thing that's in his body isn't Tony. It's some alien.. literally. She shoves the stones in her pocket and walks up to the empty suit- Tony.
Of course he would risk it all. Risk everything just to take down some villain... only to fail in some way. It reminds her of what happened with the blip. She wasn't blipped, but she had to watch people around her fade into nothing.
"Tony," she begins, actually calling him by his first name. "Are you able to work with me to override Wednesday?" She asks. She takes off one of her earpieces, the hologram warping with it.
"In another universe you and I made this device." Feya holds it out for the suit to take.
@karenpage-journalist @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @thesuperiorstark
Karen hesitates, but the voice coming from the Mark 1 sounds like Tony Stark. And, more importantly, sounds sane.
Stark could be trying to trick them, yes, but this wasn't his style. He wouldn't pretend to be a hero on their side, his ego was too big for that. This felt like the real deal.
She turns toward Rav, who is holding Matt's body and also holding the time door open for the rest of them.
"All right, we need to get the targets out of here," Karen declares. "This is Stark's stronghold and the longer we stay here, the more likely he'll catch us, like mice in a trap, when he gets back." She holds out her hand to help Madeline down from the table. "Go to Ravonna over there, her door will take you out of here."
She glances at Feya, not wanting to leaving her partner in this whole thing. "If you and Stark.. uh... I mean, if you and the Mark 1 here can overpower Stark's body when it shows up, I can stay and help distract him. And Rav will help." She feels with certainty that Ravonna will get Matt and Madeline to safety and then will be right back for the battle.
@th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
"is anyone coming or am I just taking these two?" she nods to Matt and Madeline
"oh hey you're all better!" shes shocked at Madeline's state but waves her over "let's get you out of here"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark
▪︎ Matt lays limp in her arms, he's either extremely tired or suffering after effects from the symbiote.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt @thesuperiorstark @karenpage-journalist @madeline-gallagher-covington
Madeline followed Ravonna, glancing to the heroes over her shoulder. "This is a blooming mess." She commented, "Where are we headed?"
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
Madeline was barely conscious, wincing softly when Ravonna put her down. She turned away from the bright lights overhead. Slowly the pain was alleviated, then gone, the waste that had covered her vanished.
She sat up, looking down to her hands and then tentatively to her foot. All in one piece, like magic. "... Thank you." She muttered, sitting up.
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
"I love him. I chose him over Pepper and he still left." He spoke though his voice was cold, there was an underlying loneliness that lingered about him. Eyeing the numbers on the elevator as they traveled, they'd be here for a while, the elevator was slow and the basement far. "I did all of this for him. Learned everything I could about biology... I can fix his eyes now."
"I just need Matty to trust me again. To let me help him. San Francisco won't happen again."
Ravonna listens, weirdly enough she knows what that's like. it reminds her of Mobius; you do everything for them and then they turn around and ask why there's so much blood on your hands.
"happened to me once" von says quietly "I didn't change until it was too late and now I'll never see him again."
she sighs "you smart guys, you're all the same. you know everything about the human brain except the way it works. your very obsessiveness to have him only to yourself, with everyone else dead or forgotten. that's what's pushing him away. I doubt even you'd want that"
"what happened in San Francisco, dare I ask?"
Never see him again. The words sound like a curse. A world without his Matty. He lived it up until now. He wouldn't live it again.
"Pushing him away? No. That's not what I've been meaning to do. I've been trying to bring him closer. I love him."
"You don't know? He must really not talk about me... Everything happened in San Francisco. I went to unveil a new product. He joined me, we were still dating at the time. It was a hit, biggest thing in town. Extremis! My app, discontinued now, but took you from nothing to extraordinary in the click of a button. First week was free then it was $99 per day. A steep price? Maybe, but it gave everyone such a rush. The whole city was happy! I had a party every night. Talk show interviews during the day! There were business deals so grand, I made so much money. It was great! Smiles everywhere."
"Everywhere except for Matty... He thought the app was exploiting people, their insecurities. He said the people who couldn't afford it were struggling. Got worse when he found out that the reason it even worked was because we were messing with the water supply. Told me to shut it down. I refused. The money was too good, he didn't care about the money, he cared about the people I was hurting... I didn't realize I was losing him until we had an argument about it and in the heat of the moment I threw him out of the tower. He landed in the water, but he never came to see me again."
□ There's an error with the machine!
▪︎ Matt has no good memories of Tony Stark.
@thesuperiorstark
" Mr. Stark, there's been an error in the memory wipe. "
"Error? We don't get errors. What's the error, Wednesday?"
" You instructed me to keep the good, but there is none. "
"He's so stubborn." Tony growls, tech behind his eyes glowing as he checks out the problem. "There has to be something..."
He only half listens to Ravonna, "Well, you and your zombies aren't me and Matty. He loves me just like I love him. He just needs help to realize that. And if that means getting rid of the variables in the way like his friends and the Pillsbury dough boy he calls his fiancé, then so be it."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna joyfully laughs at the error message. that's the best news she's heard in a while.
"you cant force Matt to do anything that's what I'm say-" she quickly punches him in the face before she realizes what she's doing.
"you don't talk about foggy like that. ever. he obviously did something right and he didn't even need all your outdated and overblown technology to do it"
Tony's face moved with the force of the punch, heartbeating fast he scowled, retribution came seconds later. "Wednesday, copy everything, I'll go through it later, then delete the original memories. I will decide what stays. If anyone aside from me tries to access the data, corrupt it."
"And start implementing the bio suit. This DEI Hire just landed herself a job... Maybe I'll call her Bio Mark One."
Electricity hummed through the air as Tony's suit wrapped around him. "You're going to feel a little shock as the electricity in your brain starts connecting to my main frame. You won't be able to move much without my permission."
" Bio suit launching... "
"bio suit?" Ravonna sounds disgusted. "what the hell is that???"
her eyes flicker around the elevator in not necessarily panic but alarm, blade at the ready as her mind makes terrible images prompted by the words 'bio suit'.
little does she know though, that this TVA suit has been upgraded from what it used to be. ever since the multiverse was unleashed, the suits are more than just armour, they're protection against anything any universe can whip out to a hunter.
"You can stop us now, Wednesday."
The elevator doors finally opened, Tony stepped out of them into the bustling lobby of Stark Tower, where civilians were gathering around. Their eyes found Tony, waiting for instruction. "Everyone, there's a party happening upstairs, come on!" He shouted, arms opened as they cheered and boarded the elevator with them.
He knew exactly what he was doing. There couldn't be a fight with this many civilians around. He had surrounded himself with a sizeable amount of people.
Ravonna sneers at him from under her mask and quickly emits the blade from her pruner. gritting her teeth, she watches all these stupid party idiots get on the elevator. "I thought we were going to the basement, Stark" she says loud enough for him to hear "this is the ground floor"
she shoulders her way through the crowd to get to him without caring who's in her way.
she puts a tight hand on his shoulder and discreetly but forcefully leads him to the corner of the elevator before pressing the pommel of the pruner to his back, the weapon hidden from view "I don't think you know exactly who you're dealing with here." she says quietly
"If I didn't know any better, I would think you were flirting with me." He grins, leaning in close to her.
"I stopped us early. Guess we have to go back up. Take us back to the top, Wednesday. Can't keep my guests waiting." He smiled, at Ravonna, a piece of the silver symbiote coming from inside of him, putting itself between himself and the weapon, his chromium suit covering his back.
"You're welcome to come to the party. It's why Killgrave and I gathered your friends to begin with. A non-stop party."
"I'm not much of a party person." she speaks with venom, the words spoken like insults.
she thinks for a few moments... pondering... deciding.
she picks him up and throws him at the elevator wall before smashing the pruner to the back of his head, the metal man could take it.
she looks back at the crowd. she doesn't care.
"EVERYONE OUT. NOW. IM NOT PLAYING GAMES."
He slams into the wall, suit covering him just as the pruner hit his head. "They can't move. They can't even breathe without me wanting them to. This technology was made to stop wars before they started. To take control of people's minds and bodies before anyone died."
"Humans are just meat computers, electricity runs through them just as it does everything else in this modern world. I took advantage of that."
"Right now, I have a completely disposable human army. Everyone hold your breath until the DEI Hire puts her weapons down."
With his word they froze in place.
"You don't want to be responsible for killing all of these innocent people, do you?"
von pauses.
she pokes one of them in the cheek to see if he's lying, swearing when she sees that he's not "this is atrocious. I'm gonna squish you like a bug under my boot stark"
she thinks for a few moments before shrugging, opening a time cell and throwing tony inside.
she drops her pruner -her only true weapon- on the ground of the elevator before following him inside and having the door close behind her.
suddenly they're in an open clearing in the woods during sunrise. the grass is long, wild and still with dew. the sun never really rises as after a few minutes it always goes back to where it was before. animals watch the clearing from their places in between trees and plants.
"time doesn't pass here and I can always go back to whatever time I want. me. i can do that. you can't" she says standing a few feet away from him, cracking her knuckles "I also don't need my pruners to fight nepo babies."
"you have two options: you agree to take me to the basement and let Matt go now. or I'll beat you until you cry and then you take me to the basement and let Matt go"
When the pruner is dropped the people in the elevator begin breathing again.
He landed in the lush grass of the clearing, letting Wednesday take in their surroundings. He glanced to the number on the bottom of the screen. It was now rising steadily.
"I already told you I'd take you to the basement. You just don't have any patience." He replied, arc reactor charging. "I had a party planned for the night. I had Matty on the plans for the night. You are not on my plans for the night. You are not my priority." He stood up, firing a powerful blast at Ravonna, blue light aimed at her head.
"I don't have any patience, I have a personal vendetta with the concept of time"
she takes a side step and leans to the right to dodge the blast
"you shouldn't kill me if you wanna get out of here. what you will do is send all those people away."
"If you can get out of this place, I'll figure it out." He approaches her and his armored foot meets her knee, kicking it inward. "You're standing between me and my party. No one does that."
Ravonna yells and pulls herself back before kicking her steel toed boot into the arc reactor twice. pushing him back just far enough so she can apply a med pack onto her leg. she presses the button and the bone snaps back into place.
she straight up just sprints away into the trees. using the fauna as cover.
Stark scowls watching her retreat.
" Memory 100% replicated, Mr. Stark. Are you sure you would like to delete everything else? "
"If I can't have him, no one can. Delete it all." Stark replied to Wednesday, voice tinged with malice.
" Starting now, Mr. Stark. "
she feels her blood go cold.
Ravonna opens a time door out of the cell and back into the elevator.
she kicks her pruner out of the elevator and out of sight by everyone so she can pick it up.
"Ms. minutes! where is he?" there's almost a slight twinge of panic on her voice now. too much time has been spent on all these stupid games. Matt's still somewhere in this goddamn labyrinth of a tower.
ms.minutes appears and finally leads her to where Matt is. using the stairs she just slides down the handle all the way down.
"Matthew!!" Ravonna makes sure not to touch anything. she just wants to see him. "Matt?" she jogs around looking for him.
His Matty was in the lab, the floor right above the basement. He was strapped to a table, a machine humming above him. The holographic screens showed his vitals, a projection of his brain, focusing on his amygdala, showing areas and memories being deleted by Stark. It had started at his childhood. Whatever was actively deleting the memories wasn't visible, when he electrocuted him Stark had sent part of his symbiote into him to do the work.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
she has the urge to remove her helmet out of respect but she doesn't know if that's wise. she opts to just hold her hands behind her back.
"why did you have me send them away Matthew?" she speaks quietly "was it because you were so sure that I could do this on my own or because you wanted to protect them..but then why not tell me to go too?"
she slides out the last med pack she had on her belt and uses it to heal his ankle.
one less thing to worry about at least.
"every second that passes he's winning. he's too strong when I fight him. i kill him, i lose, I keep him alive, he wins. i could send him to the end of time and I'd still fail"
she lets the silence sit for a few moments like it's gonna come to her, like someone's gonna pop out from the shadows and solve it all like a puzzle "that's it. I am genuinely out of ideas...so my two choices are...I go against your last conscious wishes and risk getting you mad at me when you wake up...or...I call back Karen, frank, feya and Jess, risk their lives and hope they have an idea..."
"well you do owe me from that time you went behind my back and ghosted me" she chuckles grimly.
she sighs and opens a time door, looking over her shoulder to see if they'll step through.
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt @theyneedtobepunished @jessicajonespi
Karen was starting to dread the orange glow of the time door. But when one opens directly in front of you, you don't turn and run away. She might be a failure, but she's not a coward.
Karen steps through.
The scene in front of her is chilling. A laboratory that was way too close to the type of shit Hydra liked to pull, complete with human test subject strapped down to a table. But it wasn't her, this time, it's Matthew.
She had nightmares that started like this.
And ended with her screaming.
Karen's mind is entirely her own. She looks at Ravonna with anger and confusion and a hundred other emotions, but they are all her own emotions. No Hydra programming in charge.
"Ravonna, what's going on?"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi
There it is again. Another door, another portal- but why? Feya sucks a sharp breath in, stepping through the door after Karen.
When she sees the lab it sends a chill down her spine. It's a similar lab to what her Tony Stark had, just with a... horrible vibe. She looks at Matt, tilting her head. Was he unconscious? Of course... but why?
She takes a look at Karen and reaches out a gentle hand, resting it on the other's arm.
"Karen. Don't direct this at her. Direct it at Stark and Killgrave. They're the ones responsible," she says, her voice soft and not commanding at all.
She turns her head to look at Ravonna, wanting to hear the answer to Karen's question.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
Ravonna lets out a small sigh of relief, they came
"I'm out of ideas" she says simply
she turns to face both women and takes off the mask of the helmet, so they can see her face clearly, hear her voice unchanged. "i tried to fight him, to outsmart him, to trap him, to threaten him. none of it worked"
she looks back at Matt "he's deleting all Matt's memories and if anyone other than him tries to gain access then it'll all be 'corrupted"' she takes the word from stark himself "he's the only one that can undo all of this. and he's not even entirely human anymore. he did something to himself I don't know what. he's eyes glow and his skin turns to metal at will. I can't even cut him."
Ravonna sighs and rubs her eyes with her fist. "he also has this weird army? he can control people's minds, he made them stop breathing with just a few words. He's in a time cell so you guys should be fine"
"but yeah...I'm all out of ideas."
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt
After Ravonna and Stark disappeared Jessica had dutifully raided Tony's stash. She had successfully gone through two bottles and was working on her third. She lowered the bottle of bourbon so expensive she couldn't even pronounce the name when the door opened. She squinted at it, trying to figure it out for a minute. It was imposing, ominous, inviting. She hopped off the counter, grabbed a fourth bottle for her apparent trip and stepped through.
Her face fell. The place looked like a high tech IGH, complete with a torture table and graphs she didn't care to understand. "Holy shit Matt..." She placed the bottles down and raced over to him, ripping the restraints off of his arms with grunts of effort.
Her eyes found Ravonna, listening to the tail end of her spiel. "There's other Tony Stark's around. One's that aren't complete assholes. We can find one of them, they would help us... Or we can beat the shit out of the Tony we do have until we get what we need."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Feya looks over as Jessica enters the room and starts immediately going to Matt and ripping the restraints off.
At her words Feya stops and thinks for a bit.
"I wouldn't mind beating him half to death, but I don't think he'll give anything up." She huffs out in annoyance, trying to come up with something.
"I worked with my Tony Stark a fair bit... If I know the technology that this shitty one is using, I may be able to do something." She looks around the room for something to give her more information.
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Karen gives Feya a little smile and nods at her, silently thanking her for the reminder. Any personal feelings have to be put on hold until this is over, especially if the plan is for everyone to make it out of here alive.
Karen swallows hard when Rav explains what's going on. "Deleting his memories--!?" she gasps sharply. Her eyes go to the holographic projection in the air above the table, but it's obviously over her head. She does, however, see the file on the hovering screen that says all memories are saved in Stark's database. So that means Matt's mind is intact on some server, somewhere. How do they reverse the deletion process and put it back, without tripping Stark's trap that will corrupt Matt's mental data?
Jessica (and Jessica's booze) arrive and Karen is thankful for the extra muscle. She has a feeling they're going to need it.
Her eyes dart to Feya. "You're the hacker," she agrees. "What do you think, can you reverse what Stark's program is doing here?" She gestures to the screen over Matt. "If we distract Stark when he shows up -- which I'm sure he will -- can you put Matt's memories back without losing him?"
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
She steps to the table and looks at the hologram. She lets out a sigh and begins to explain.
"The hard part is getting past the encryption and the trap of corruption. If I can get into his systems from another place, not for Matt's memories. I may be able to add myself as an admin to bypass the trap..." She pauses to think again. "I may not be able to directly reverse it, but I will be able to reverse engineer the process of taking his memories out to put them back in..." Yet another pause.
She lifts up a hand and taps on one of her ear pieces, and a visor-looking hologram pops up.
"While I try to gain entry into his main server, I'll need you guys to look for any signs of how his memory tech works."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
She let her mind trail back to what she saw during the fight and everything she knew about Tony Stark. He was flashy, showy, like a flame and they were all moths.
"All of it was a distraction..." She muttered, "Even when he was fighting us he was focused on this. What's he distracting us from in here?"
She looked at the machines, the holograms, the vitals, then down at Matthew, eyes studying her friend, answering her own rhetorical question. "He's distracting us from Matt with all this shit. Usually there'd be a bunch of chords and tubes and hospital bullshit. None of that is here... Whatever is erasing his memory, holding him to Stark's fucked up tech is inside of him."
She looked around the room, then back at the team, eyes landing on Karen. "Can you shock him a little? If I'm right, it'll short out the connection, might even bring whatever is in him out... If I'm wrong it's revenge for him being a shit head and sending everyone away."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Karen steps up next to Jessica, looking down at Matt's body stretched out on the lab table, a curl of unease in her stomach at the investigator's request.
But Jessica is right. Everything with Tony Stark is part of a show. They need to start working behind the scenes.
"I can try," she tells her grimly, reaching out and placing her hand on Matt's shoulder.
"Not that I've ever done this outside of a battle simulation," she admits. "But I've got it in theory."
Hospitals use a sudden surge of electricity to disrupt an irregular heartbeat and allow the body's natural rhythm to take over after. Hopefully this will do the same thing. "Clear," she mutters with dark humor as she sends a burst into Matt's body.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @thesuperiorstark
Nothing appeared to be happening on the surface, until a silver symbiote forced itself out of Matty's head. The tech around them glitches.
On Black Cat's screen two files suddenly pop up:
ANTHONY STARK - MEMEORIES. EXE (MAY 15 2020) [CONNECTED TO EXTERNAL HARDWARE, CURRENTLY OFFLINE, SHARE DATA TO MARK I FOR ACCESS] [USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY]
MATTHEW MURDOCK - MEMORIES. EXE (JAN 15 2026)
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
as the women talk and brainstorm Ravonna slips away and heads for the door to the stairs, putting her mask back on.
looks like they have it handled, if they need her, they can call her. but when he wakes up, there's one more thing he's gonna ask for, so she might as well get a jump on it.
it wasn't lost on her that she wasn't in the basement like Stark said that's where he would take her. and if that's where he would take her, she wonders if that's where Madeline is being held.
she shuts the staircase door quietly behind her and walks down to the basement, she tilts her head to look through the small window on the door, looking around the room before she decides to enter.
@thesuperiorstark @th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @verygoodlawyer
The basement is filled with suits, chief among them Mark I which was stashed in the corner.
There's a metal case, human shaped, fingers burned off. A foot melted on one side. An opening enough for air to get in at the face. Dried blood is on the floor under it.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
"gotcha"
she turns on her pruner and opens the door, resting the weapon on her other forearm as she approaches the body, her eyes darting every which way to stay aware.
she makes her way over to the case and gives it a small tap with a fist "Madeline? I'm gonna get you out"
she prunes the area of the case that's holding it closed and a large chunk of it disappears. after turning off the pruner, she flicks the case open with the weapon. "Madeline?"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
Madeline was trapped inside, ghostly pale. Her heart was beating slowly, chest rising and falling even slower. She was barely alive. Her left foot was gone, what remained of her leg covered in burns, the bone exposed, her fingers mangled, all of her finger tips on both hands had been burned off. The smell was putrid, blood, waste and bile covered her clothes. Her brown eyes looked at Ravonna, fear and panic shown on her face, but she didn't dare to move.
von takes off the mask of her helmet and clicks it onto her belt, along with her pruner before getting on one knee. This is horrifying, worse than what this woman did to her and Matt, worse than what Ravonna wanted to do to her. it's inhumane. the fear she sees in Madeline's eyes is something that you never forget.
she doesn't let herself react to the smell or the horrifying sight, she doesn't want to make the woman feel worse. instead she just gives her a reassuring smile "I'm getting you out of here"
"can I carry you out?"
The woman stared blankly at Ravonna, her chapped lips parted, rasping out a sound that was barely audible, talking hurt, moving on her own would hurt worse. "Yes." Caked on blood had hardened, leaving part of her hair attached to the inside of the human shaped container, it let out a crusty sound like stale crisps when she moved her head.
Ravonna gives her a small nod and slides her hands under the woman's arms and knees. pulling her up and out of the case she holds Madeline close and positions her head on her shoulder. "you're gonna be okay, I got you"
she stands up and is disturbed by how light the woman feels but she keeps this to herself.
she walks back to the stairs and back up to the lab, to talk to the other women.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark @karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi
What remained of her fingers lightly gripped onto Ravonna. Afraid of falling and afraid of moving, fear had become a constant companion. The bleeding had stopped days ago, flakes of dried blood and bile fell off when she was moved.
Coming into the light her face was covered in streaks of white from dried tears, she turned away, the light strained her eyes, adding to the pain she was in. "Retribution, he called it." She whispered, hoping her muffled voice was audible, she had shredded it with the screaming, it was raspy. "I'd like to apologize... For what I did."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt
"this isn't justice" the words seem like they came straight out of Matt's mouth, but she really believed them. "this is one man who thinks himself above the law. neither me or my friend tolerate this and you can be sure that Stark will get his retribution."
"but I do accept your apology, and I'm sure Matthew will too"
she lets the silence sit between them for a few moments
"'have courage and be kind', that's from Cinderella, right?"
@karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @madeline-gallagher-covington @th3blackcatt @thesuperiorstark
"I thought Iron Man was nice." She whispered. "He was not nice... Never meet your heroes."
"He was my favorite."
Her eyes burned, threatening tears that didn't have the capacity to form. "I like the remakes... Brings magic to the world."
"We can all use that sometimes." She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. "Do you... Like them?"
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
"I love him. I chose him over Pepper and he still left." He spoke though his voice was cold, there was an underlying loneliness that lingered about him. Eyeing the numbers on the elevator as they traveled, they'd be here for a while, the elevator was slow and the basement far. "I did all of this for him. Learned everything I could about biology... I can fix his eyes now."
"I just need Matty to trust me again. To let me help him. San Francisco won't happen again."
Ravonna listens, weirdly enough she knows what that's like. it reminds her of Mobius; you do everything for them and then they turn around and ask why there's so much blood on your hands.
"happened to me once" von says quietly "I didn't change until it was too late and now I'll never see him again."
she sighs "you smart guys, you're all the same. you know everything about the human brain except the way it works. your very obsessiveness to have him only to yourself, with everyone else dead or forgotten. that's what's pushing him away. I doubt even you'd want that"
"what happened in San Francisco, dare I ask?"
Never see him again. The words sound like a curse. A world without his Matty. He lived it up until now. He wouldn't live it again.
"Pushing him away? No. That's not what I've been meaning to do. I've been trying to bring him closer. I love him."
"You don't know? He must really not talk about me... Everything happened in San Francisco. I went to unveil a new product. He joined me, we were still dating at the time. It was a hit, biggest thing in town. Extremis! My app, discontinued now, but took you from nothing to extraordinary in the click of a button. First week was free then it was $99 per day. A steep price? Maybe, but it gave everyone such a rush. The whole city was happy! I had a party every night. Talk show interviews during the day! There were business deals so grand, I made so much money. It was great! Smiles everywhere."
"Everywhere except for Matty... He thought the app was exploiting people, their insecurities. He said the people who couldn't afford it were struggling. Got worse when he found out that the reason it even worked was because we were messing with the water supply. Told me to shut it down. I refused. The money was too good, he didn't care about the money, he cared about the people I was hurting... I didn't realize I was losing him until we had an argument about it and in the heat of the moment I threw him out of the tower. He landed in the water, but he never came to see me again."
□ There's an error with the machine!
▪︎ Matt has no good memories of Tony Stark.
@thesuperiorstark
" Mr. Stark, there's been an error in the memory wipe. "
"Error? We don't get errors. What's the error, Wednesday?"
" You instructed me to keep the good, but there is none. "
"He's so stubborn." Tony growls, tech behind his eyes glowing as he checks out the problem. "There has to be something..."
He only half listens to Ravonna, "Well, you and your zombies aren't me and Matty. He loves me just like I love him. He just needs help to realize that. And if that means getting rid of the variables in the way like his friends and the Pillsbury dough boy he calls his fiancé, then so be it."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna joyfully laughs at the error message. that's the best news she's heard in a while.
"you cant force Matt to do anything that's what I'm say-" she quickly punches him in the face before she realizes what she's doing.
"you don't talk about foggy like that. ever. he obviously did something right and he didn't even need all your outdated and overblown technology to do it"
Tony's face moved with the force of the punch, heartbeating fast he scowled, retribution came seconds later. "Wednesday, copy everything, I'll go through it later, then delete the original memories. I will decide what stays. If anyone aside from me tries to access the data, corrupt it."
"And start implementing the bio suit. This DEI Hire just landed herself a job... Maybe I'll call her Bio Mark One."
Electricity hummed through the air as Tony's suit wrapped around him. "You're going to feel a little shock as the electricity in your brain starts connecting to my main frame. You won't be able to move much without my permission."
" Bio suit launching... "
"bio suit?" Ravonna sounds disgusted. "what the hell is that???"
her eyes flicker around the elevator in not necessarily panic but alarm, blade at the ready as her mind makes terrible images prompted by the words 'bio suit'.
little does she know though, that this TVA suit has been upgraded from what it used to be. ever since the multiverse was unleashed, the suits are more than just armour, they're protection against anything any universe can whip out to a hunter.
"You can stop us now, Wednesday."
The elevator doors finally opened, Tony stepped out of them into the bustling lobby of Stark Tower, where civilians were gathering around. Their eyes found Tony, waiting for instruction. "Everyone, there's a party happening upstairs, come on!" He shouted, arms opened as they cheered and boarded the elevator with them.
He knew exactly what he was doing. There couldn't be a fight with this many civilians around. He had surrounded himself with a sizeable amount of people.
Ravonna sneers at him from under her mask and quickly emits the blade from her pruner. gritting her teeth, she watches all these stupid party idiots get on the elevator. "I thought we were going to the basement, Stark" she says loud enough for him to hear "this is the ground floor"
she shoulders her way through the crowd to get to him without caring who's in her way.
she puts a tight hand on his shoulder and discreetly but forcefully leads him to the corner of the elevator before pressing the pommel of the pruner to his back, the weapon hidden from view "I don't think you know exactly who you're dealing with here." she says quietly
"If I didn't know any better, I would think you were flirting with me." He grins, leaning in close to her.
"I stopped us early. Guess we have to go back up. Take us back to the top, Wednesday. Can't keep my guests waiting." He smiled, at Ravonna, a piece of the silver symbiote coming from inside of him, putting itself between himself and the weapon, his chromium suit covering his back.
"You're welcome to come to the party. It's why Killgrave and I gathered your friends to begin with. A non-stop party."
"I'm not much of a party person." she speaks with venom, the words spoken like insults.
she thinks for a few moments... pondering... deciding.
she picks him up and throws him at the elevator wall before smashing the pruner to the back of his head, the metal man could take it.
she looks back at the crowd. she doesn't care.
"EVERYONE OUT. NOW. IM NOT PLAYING GAMES."
He slams into the wall, suit covering him just as the pruner hit his head. "They can't move. They can't even breathe without me wanting them to. This technology was made to stop wars before they started. To take control of people's minds and bodies before anyone died."
"Humans are just meat computers, electricity runs through them just as it does everything else in this modern world. I took advantage of that."
"Right now, I have a completely disposable human army. Everyone hold your breath until the DEI Hire puts her weapons down."
With his word they froze in place.
"You don't want to be responsible for killing all of these innocent people, do you?"
von pauses.
she pokes one of them in the cheek to see if he's lying, swearing when she sees that he's not "this is atrocious. I'm gonna squish you like a bug under my boot stark"
she thinks for a few moments before shrugging, opening a time cell and throwing tony inside.
she drops her pruner -her only true weapon- on the ground of the elevator before following him inside and having the door close behind her.
suddenly they're in an open clearing in the woods during sunrise. the grass is long, wild and still with dew. the sun never really rises as after a few minutes it always goes back to where it was before. animals watch the clearing from their places in between trees and plants.
"time doesn't pass here and I can always go back to whatever time I want. me. i can do that. you can't" she says standing a few feet away from him, cracking her knuckles "I also don't need my pruners to fight nepo babies."
"you have two options: you agree to take me to the basement and let Matt go now. or I'll beat you until you cry and then you take me to the basement and let Matt go"
When the pruner is dropped the people in the elevator begin breathing again.
He landed in the lush grass of the clearing, letting Wednesday take in their surroundings. He glanced to the number on the bottom of the screen. It was now rising steadily.
"I already told you I'd take you to the basement. You just don't have any patience." He replied, arc reactor charging. "I had a party planned for the night. I had Matty on the plans for the night. You are not on my plans for the night. You are not my priority." He stood up, firing a powerful blast at Ravonna, blue light aimed at her head.
"I don't have any patience, I have a personal vendetta with the concept of time"
she takes a side step and leans to the right to dodge the blast
"you shouldn't kill me if you wanna get out of here. what you will do is send all those people away."
"If you can get out of this place, I'll figure it out." He approaches her and his armored foot meets her knee, kicking it inward. "You're standing between me and my party. No one does that."
Ravonna yells and pulls herself back before kicking her steel toed boot into the arc reactor twice. pushing him back just far enough so she can apply a med pack onto her leg. she presses the button and the bone snaps back into place.
she straight up just sprints away into the trees. using the fauna as cover.
Stark scowls watching her retreat.
" Memory 100% replicated, Mr. Stark. Are you sure you would like to delete everything else? "
"If I can't have him, no one can. Delete it all." Stark replied to Wednesday, voice tinged with malice.
" Starting now, Mr. Stark. "
she feels her blood go cold.
Ravonna opens a time door out of the cell and back into the elevator.
she kicks her pruner out of the elevator and out of sight by everyone so she can pick it up.
"Ms. minutes! where is he?" there's almost a slight twinge of panic on her voice now. too much time has been spent on all these stupid games. Matt's still somewhere in this goddamn labyrinth of a tower.
ms.minutes appears and finally leads her to where Matt is. using the stairs she just slides down the handle all the way down.
"Matthew!!" Ravonna makes sure not to touch anything. she just wants to see him. "Matt?" she jogs around looking for him.
His Matty was in the lab, the floor right above the basement. He was strapped to a table, a machine humming above him. The holographic screens showed his vitals, a projection of his brain, focusing on his amygdala, showing areas and memories being deleted by Stark. It had started at his childhood. Whatever was actively deleting the memories wasn't visible, when he electrocuted him Stark had sent part of his symbiote into him to do the work.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
she has the urge to remove her helmet out of respect but she doesn't know if that's wise. she opts to just hold her hands behind her back.
"why did you have me send them away Matthew?" she speaks quietly "was it because you were so sure that I could do this on my own or because you wanted to protect them..but then why not tell me to go too?"
she slides out the last med pack she had on her belt and uses it to heal his ankle.
one less thing to worry about at least.
"every second that passes he's winning. he's too strong when I fight him. i kill him, i lose, I keep him alive, he wins. i could send him to the end of time and I'd still fail"
she lets the silence sit for a few moments like it's gonna come to her, like someone's gonna pop out from the shadows and solve it all like a puzzle "that's it. I am genuinely out of ideas...so my two choices are...I go against your last conscious wishes and risk getting you mad at me when you wake up...or...I call back Karen, frank, feya and Jess, risk their lives and hope they have an idea..."
"well you do owe me from that time you went behind my back and ghosted me" she chuckles grimly.
she sighs and opens a time door, looking over her shoulder to see if they'll step through.
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt @theyneedtobepunished @jessicajonespi
Karen was starting to dread the orange glow of the time door. But when one opens directly in front of you, you don't turn and run away. She might be a failure, but she's not a coward.
Karen steps through.
The scene in front of her is chilling. A laboratory that was way too close to the type of shit Hydra liked to pull, complete with human test subject strapped down to a table. But it wasn't her, this time, it's Matthew.
She had nightmares that started like this.
And ended with her screaming.
Karen's mind is entirely her own. She looks at Ravonna with anger and confusion and a hundred other emotions, but they are all her own emotions. No Hydra programming in charge.
"Ravonna, what's going on?"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi
There it is again. Another door, another portal- but why? Feya sucks a sharp breath in, stepping through the door after Karen.
When she sees the lab it sends a chill down her spine. It's a similar lab to what her Tony Stark had, just with a... horrible vibe. She looks at Matt, tilting her head. Was he unconscious? Of course... but why?
She takes a look at Karen and reaches out a gentle hand, resting it on the other's arm.
"Karen. Don't direct this at her. Direct it at Stark and Killgrave. They're the ones responsible," she says, her voice soft and not commanding at all.
She turns her head to look at Ravonna, wanting to hear the answer to Karen's question.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
Ravonna lets out a small sigh of relief, they came
"I'm out of ideas" she says simply
she turns to face both women and takes off the mask of the helmet, so they can see her face clearly, hear her voice unchanged. "i tried to fight him, to outsmart him, to trap him, to threaten him. none of it worked"
she looks back at Matt "he's deleting all Matt's memories and if anyone other than him tries to gain access then it'll all be 'corrupted"' she takes the word from stark himself "he's the only one that can undo all of this. and he's not even entirely human anymore. he did something to himself I don't know what. he's eyes glow and his skin turns to metal at will. I can't even cut him."
Ravonna sighs and rubs her eyes with her fist. "he also has this weird army? he can control people's minds, he made them stop breathing with just a few words. He's in a time cell so you guys should be fine"
"but yeah...I'm all out of ideas."
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt
After Ravonna and Stark disappeared Jessica had dutifully raided Tony's stash. She had successfully gone through two bottles and was working on her third. She lowered the bottle of bourbon so expensive she couldn't even pronounce the name when the door opened. She squinted at it, trying to figure it out for a minute. It was imposing, ominous, inviting. She hopped off the counter, grabbed a fourth bottle for her apparent trip and stepped through.
Her face fell. The place looked like a high tech IGH, complete with a torture table and graphs she didn't care to understand. "Holy shit Matt..." She placed the bottles down and raced over to him, ripping the restraints off of his arms with grunts of effort.
Her eyes found Ravonna, listening to the tail end of her spiel. "There's other Tony Stark's around. One's that aren't complete assholes. We can find one of them, they would help us... Or we can beat the shit out of the Tony we do have until we get what we need."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Feya looks over as Jessica enters the room and starts immediately going to Matt and ripping the restraints off.
At her words Feya stops and thinks for a bit.
"I wouldn't mind beating him half to death, but I don't think he'll give anything up." She huffs out in annoyance, trying to come up with something.
"I worked with my Tony Stark a fair bit... If I know the technology that this shitty one is using, I may be able to do something." She looks around the room for something to give her more information.
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Karen gives Feya a little smile and nods at her, silently thanking her for the reminder. Any personal feelings have to be put on hold until this is over, especially if the plan is for everyone to make it out of here alive.
Karen swallows hard when Rav explains what's going on. "Deleting his memories--!?" she gasps sharply. Her eyes go to the holographic projection in the air above the table, but it's obviously over her head. She does, however, see the file on the hovering screen that says all memories are saved in Stark's database. So that means Matt's mind is intact on some server, somewhere. How do they reverse the deletion process and put it back, without tripping Stark's trap that will corrupt Matt's mental data?
Jessica (and Jessica's booze) arrive and Karen is thankful for the extra muscle. She has a feeling they're going to need it.
Her eyes dart to Feya. "You're the hacker," she agrees. "What do you think, can you reverse what Stark's program is doing here?" She gestures to the screen over Matt. "If we distract Stark when he shows up -- which I'm sure he will -- can you put Matt's memories back without losing him?"
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
She steps to the table and looks at the hologram. She lets out a sigh and begins to explain.
"The hard part is getting past the encryption and the trap of corruption. If I can get into his systems from another place, not for Matt's memories. I may be able to add myself as an admin to bypass the trap..." She pauses to think again. "I may not be able to directly reverse it, but I will be able to reverse engineer the process of taking his memories out to put them back in..." Yet another pause.
She lifts up a hand and taps on one of her ear pieces, and a visor-looking hologram pops up.
"While I try to gain entry into his main server, I'll need you guys to look for any signs of how his memory tech works."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
She let her mind trail back to what she saw during the fight and everything she knew about Tony Stark. He was flashy, showy, like a flame and they were all moths.
"All of it was a distraction..." She muttered, "Even when he was fighting us he was focused on this. What's he distracting us from in here?"
She looked at the machines, the holograms, the vitals, then down at Matthew, eyes studying her friend, answering her own rhetorical question. "He's distracting us from Matt with all this shit. Usually there'd be a bunch of chords and tubes and hospital bullshit. None of that is here... Whatever is erasing his memory, holding him to Stark's fucked up tech is inside of him."
She looked around the room, then back at the team, eyes landing on Karen. "Can you shock him a little? If I'm right, it'll short out the connection, might even bring whatever is in him out... If I'm wrong it's revenge for him being a shit head and sending everyone away."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Karen steps up next to Jessica, looking down at Matt's body stretched out on the lab table, a curl of unease in her stomach at the investigator's request.
But Jessica is right. Everything with Tony Stark is part of a show. They need to start working behind the scenes.
"I can try," she tells her grimly, reaching out and placing her hand on Matt's shoulder.
"Not that I've ever done this outside of a battle simulation," she admits. "But I've got it in theory."
Hospitals use a sudden surge of electricity to disrupt an irregular heartbeat and allow the body's natural rhythm to take over after. Hopefully this will do the same thing. "Clear," she mutters with dark humor as she sends a burst into Matt's body.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @thesuperiorstark
Nothing appeared to be happening on the surface, until a silver symbiote forced itself out of Matty's head. The tech around them glitches.
On Black Cat's screen two files suddenly pop up:
ANTHONY STARK - MEMEORIES. EXE (MAY 15 2020) [CONNECTED TO EXTERNAL HARDWARE, CURRENTLY OFFLINE, SHARE DATA TO MARK I FOR ACCESS] [USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY]
MATTHEW MURDOCK - MEMORIES. EXE (JAN 15 2026)
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
as the women talk and brainstorm Ravonna slips away and heads for the door to the stairs, putting her mask back on.
looks like they have it handled, if they need her, they can call her. but when he wakes up, there's one more thing he's gonna ask for, so she might as well get a jump on it.
it wasn't lost on her that she wasn't in the basement like Stark said that's where he would take her. and if that's where he would take her, she wonders if that's where Madeline is being held.
she shuts the staircase door quietly behind her and walks down to the basement, she tilts her head to look through the small window on the door, looking around the room before she decides to enter.
@thesuperiorstark @th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @verygoodlawyer
The basement is filled with suits, chief among them Mark I which was stashed in the corner.
There's a metal case, human shaped, fingers burned off. A foot melted on one side. An opening enough for air to get in at the face. Dried blood is on the floor under it.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
"gotcha"
she turns on her pruner and opens the door, resting the weapon on her other forearm as she approaches the body, her eyes darting every which way to stay aware.
she makes her way over to the case and gives it a small tap with a fist "Madeline? I'm gonna get you out"
she prunes the area of the case that's holding it closed and a large chunk of it disappears. after turning off the pruner, she flicks the case open with the weapon. "Madeline?"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
Madeline was trapped inside, ghostly pale. Her heart was beating slowly, chest rising and falling even slower. She was barely alive. Her left foot was gone, what remained of her leg covered in burns, the bone exposed, her fingers mangled, all of her finger tips on both hands had been burned off. The smell was putrid, blood, waste and bile covered her clothes. Her brown eyes looked at Ravonna, fear and panic shown on her face, but she didn't dare to move.
von takes off the mask of her helmet and clicks it onto her belt, along with her pruner before getting on one knee. This is horrifying, worse than what this woman did to her and Matt, worse than what Ravonna wanted to do to her. it's inhumane. the fear she sees in Madeline's eyes is something that you never forget.
she doesn't let herself react to the smell or the horrifying sight, she doesn't want to make the woman feel worse. instead she just gives her a reassuring smile "I'm getting you out of here"
"can I carry you out?"
The woman stared blankly at Ravonna, her chapped lips parted, rasping out a sound that was barely audible, talking hurt, moving on her own would hurt worse. "Yes." Caked on blood had hardened, leaving part of her hair attached to the inside of the human shaped container, it let out a crusty sound like stale crisps when she moved her head.
Ravonna gives her a small nod and slides her hands under the woman's arms and knees. pulling her up and out of the case she holds Madeline close and positions her head on her shoulder. "you're gonna be okay, I got you"
she stands up and is disturbed by how light the woman feels but she keeps this to herself.
she walks back to the stairs and back up to the lab, to talk to the other women.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark @karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi
What remained of her fingers lightly gripped onto Ravonna. Afraid of falling and afraid of moving, fear had become a constant companion. The bleeding had stopped days ago, flakes of dried blood and bile fell off when she was moved.
Coming into the light her face was covered in streaks of white from dried tears, she turned away, the light strained her eyes, adding to the pain she was in. "Retribution, he called it." She whispered, hoping her muffled voice was audible, she had shredded it with the screaming, it was raspy. "I'd like to apologize... For what I did."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @thesuperiorstark @jessicajonespi @th3blackcatt
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
"I love him. I chose him over Pepper and he still left." He spoke though his voice was cold, there was an underlying loneliness that lingered about him. Eyeing the numbers on the elevator as they traveled, they'd be here for a while, the elevator was slow and the basement far. "I did all of this for him. Learned everything I could about biology... I can fix his eyes now."
"I just need Matty to trust me again. To let me help him. San Francisco won't happen again."
Ravonna listens, weirdly enough she knows what that's like. it reminds her of Mobius; you do everything for them and then they turn around and ask why there's so much blood on your hands.
"happened to me once" von says quietly "I didn't change until it was too late and now I'll never see him again."
she sighs "you smart guys, you're all the same. you know everything about the human brain except the way it works. your very obsessiveness to have him only to yourself, with everyone else dead or forgotten. that's what's pushing him away. I doubt even you'd want that"
"what happened in San Francisco, dare I ask?"
Never see him again. The words sound like a curse. A world without his Matty. He lived it up until now. He wouldn't live it again.
"Pushing him away? No. That's not what I've been meaning to do. I've been trying to bring him closer. I love him."
"You don't know? He must really not talk about me... Everything happened in San Francisco. I went to unveil a new product. He joined me, we were still dating at the time. It was a hit, biggest thing in town. Extremis! My app, discontinued now, but took you from nothing to extraordinary in the click of a button. First week was free then it was $99 per day. A steep price? Maybe, but it gave everyone such a rush. The whole city was happy! I had a party every night. Talk show interviews during the day! There were business deals so grand, I made so much money. It was great! Smiles everywhere."
"Everywhere except for Matty... He thought the app was exploiting people, their insecurities. He said the people who couldn't afford it were struggling. Got worse when he found out that the reason it even worked was because we were messing with the water supply. Told me to shut it down. I refused. The money was too good, he didn't care about the money, he cared about the people I was hurting... I didn't realize I was losing him until we had an argument about it and in the heat of the moment I threw him out of the tower. He landed in the water, but he never came to see me again."
□ There's an error with the machine!
▪︎ Matt has no good memories of Tony Stark.
@thesuperiorstark
" Mr. Stark, there's been an error in the memory wipe. "
"Error? We don't get errors. What's the error, Wednesday?"
" You instructed me to keep the good, but there is none. "
"He's so stubborn." Tony growls, tech behind his eyes glowing as he checks out the problem. "There has to be something..."
He only half listens to Ravonna, "Well, you and your zombies aren't me and Matty. He loves me just like I love him. He just needs help to realize that. And if that means getting rid of the variables in the way like his friends and the Pillsbury dough boy he calls his fiancé, then so be it."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna joyfully laughs at the error message. that's the best news she's heard in a while.
"you cant force Matt to do anything that's what I'm say-" she quickly punches him in the face before she realizes what she's doing.
"you don't talk about foggy like that. ever. he obviously did something right and he didn't even need all your outdated and overblown technology to do it"
Tony's face moved with the force of the punch, heartbeating fast he scowled, retribution came seconds later. "Wednesday, copy everything, I'll go through it later, then delete the original memories. I will decide what stays. If anyone aside from me tries to access the data, corrupt it."
"And start implementing the bio suit. This DEI Hire just landed herself a job... Maybe I'll call her Bio Mark One."
Electricity hummed through the air as Tony's suit wrapped around him. "You're going to feel a little shock as the electricity in your brain starts connecting to my main frame. You won't be able to move much without my permission."
" Bio suit launching... "
"bio suit?" Ravonna sounds disgusted. "what the hell is that???"
her eyes flicker around the elevator in not necessarily panic but alarm, blade at the ready as her mind makes terrible images prompted by the words 'bio suit'.
little does she know though, that this TVA suit has been upgraded from what it used to be. ever since the multiverse was unleashed, the suits are more than just armour, they're protection against anything any universe can whip out to a hunter.
"You can stop us now, Wednesday."
The elevator doors finally opened, Tony stepped out of them into the bustling lobby of Stark Tower, where civilians were gathering around. Their eyes found Tony, waiting for instruction. "Everyone, there's a party happening upstairs, come on!" He shouted, arms opened as they cheered and boarded the elevator with them.
He knew exactly what he was doing. There couldn't be a fight with this many civilians around. He had surrounded himself with a sizeable amount of people.
Ravonna sneers at him from under her mask and quickly emits the blade from her pruner. gritting her teeth, she watches all these stupid party idiots get on the elevator. "I thought we were going to the basement, Stark" she says loud enough for him to hear "this is the ground floor"
she shoulders her way through the crowd to get to him without caring who's in her way.
she puts a tight hand on his shoulder and discreetly but forcefully leads him to the corner of the elevator before pressing the pommel of the pruner to his back, the weapon hidden from view "I don't think you know exactly who you're dealing with here." she says quietly
"If I didn't know any better, I would think you were flirting with me." He grins, leaning in close to her.
"I stopped us early. Guess we have to go back up. Take us back to the top, Wednesday. Can't keep my guests waiting." He smiled, at Ravonna, a piece of the silver symbiote coming from inside of him, putting itself between himself and the weapon, his chromium suit covering his back.
"You're welcome to come to the party. It's why Killgrave and I gathered your friends to begin with. A non-stop party."
"I'm not much of a party person." she speaks with venom, the words spoken like insults.
she thinks for a few moments... pondering... deciding.
she picks him up and throws him at the elevator wall before smashing the pruner to the back of his head, the metal man could take it.
she looks back at the crowd. she doesn't care.
"EVERYONE OUT. NOW. IM NOT PLAYING GAMES."
He slams into the wall, suit covering him just as the pruner hit his head. "They can't move. They can't even breathe without me wanting them to. This technology was made to stop wars before they started. To take control of people's minds and bodies before anyone died."
"Humans are just meat computers, electricity runs through them just as it does everything else in this modern world. I took advantage of that."
"Right now, I have a completely disposable human army. Everyone hold your breath until the DEI Hire puts her weapons down."
With his word they froze in place.
"You don't want to be responsible for killing all of these innocent people, do you?"
von pauses.
she pokes one of them in the cheek to see if he's lying, swearing when she sees that he's not "this is atrocious. I'm gonna squish you like a bug under my boot stark"
she thinks for a few moments before shrugging, opening a time cell and throwing tony inside.
she drops her pruner -her only true weapon- on the ground of the elevator before following him inside and having the door close behind her.
suddenly they're in an open clearing in the woods during sunrise. the grass is long, wild and still with dew. the sun never really rises as after a few minutes it always goes back to where it was before. animals watch the clearing from their places in between trees and plants.
"time doesn't pass here and I can always go back to whatever time I want. me. i can do that. you can't" she says standing a few feet away from him, cracking her knuckles "I also don't need my pruners to fight nepo babies."
"you have two options: you agree to take me to the basement and let Matt go now. or I'll beat you until you cry and then you take me to the basement and let Matt go"
When the pruner is dropped the people in the elevator begin breathing again.
He landed in the lush grass of the clearing, letting Wednesday take in their surroundings. He glanced to the number on the bottom of the screen. It was now rising steadily.
"I already told you I'd take you to the basement. You just don't have any patience." He replied, arc reactor charging. "I had a party planned for the night. I had Matty on the plans for the night. You are not on my plans for the night. You are not my priority." He stood up, firing a powerful blast at Ravonna, blue light aimed at her head.
"I don't have any patience, I have a personal vendetta with the concept of time"
she takes a side step and leans to the right to dodge the blast
"you shouldn't kill me if you wanna get out of here. what you will do is send all those people away."
"If you can get out of this place, I'll figure it out." He approaches her and his armored foot meets her knee, kicking it inward. "You're standing between me and my party. No one does that."
Ravonna yells and pulls herself back before kicking her steel toed boot into the arc reactor twice. pushing him back just far enough so she can apply a med pack onto her leg. she presses the button and the bone snaps back into place.
she straight up just sprints away into the trees. using the fauna as cover.
Stark scowls watching her retreat.
" Memory 100% replicated, Mr. Stark. Are you sure you would like to delete everything else? "
"If I can't have him, no one can. Delete it all." Stark replied to Wednesday, voice tinged with malice.
" Starting now, Mr. Stark. "
she feels her blood go cold.
Ravonna opens a time door out of the cell and back into the elevator.
she kicks her pruner out of the elevator and out of sight by everyone so she can pick it up.
"Ms. minutes! where is he?" there's almost a slight twinge of panic on her voice now. too much time has been spent on all these stupid games. Matt's still somewhere in this goddamn labyrinth of a tower.
ms.minutes appears and finally leads her to where Matt is. using the stairs she just slides down the handle all the way down.
"Matthew!!" Ravonna makes sure not to touch anything. she just wants to see him. "Matt?" she jogs around looking for him.
His Matty was in the lab, the floor right above the basement. He was strapped to a table, a machine humming above him. The holographic screens showed his vitals, a projection of his brain, focusing on his amygdala, showing areas and memories being deleted by Stark. It had started at his childhood. Whatever was actively deleting the memories wasn't visible, when he electrocuted him Stark had sent part of his symbiote into him to do the work.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
she has the urge to remove her helmet out of respect but she doesn't know if that's wise. she opts to just hold her hands behind her back.
"why did you have me send them away Matthew?" she speaks quietly "was it because you were so sure that I could do this on my own or because you wanted to protect them..but then why not tell me to go too?"
she slides out the last med pack she had on her belt and uses it to heal his ankle.
one less thing to worry about at least.
"every second that passes he's winning. he's too strong when I fight him. i kill him, i lose, I keep him alive, he wins. i could send him to the end of time and I'd still fail"
she lets the silence sit for a few moments like it's gonna come to her, like someone's gonna pop out from the shadows and solve it all like a puzzle "that's it. I am genuinely out of ideas...so my two choices are...I go against your last conscious wishes and risk getting you mad at me when you wake up...or...I call back Karen, frank, feya and Jess, risk their lives and hope they have an idea..."
"well you do owe me from that time you went behind my back and ghosted me" she chuckles grimly.
she sighs and opens a time door, looking over her shoulder to see if they'll step through.
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt @theyneedtobepunished @jessicajonespi
Karen was starting to dread the orange glow of the time door. But when one opens directly in front of you, you don't turn and run away. She might be a failure, but she's not a coward.
Karen steps through.
The scene in front of her is chilling. A laboratory that was way too close to the type of shit Hydra liked to pull, complete with human test subject strapped down to a table. But it wasn't her, this time, it's Matthew.
She had nightmares that started like this.
And ended with her screaming.
Karen's mind is entirely her own. She looks at Ravonna with anger and confusion and a hundred other emotions, but they are all her own emotions. No Hydra programming in charge.
"Ravonna, what's going on?"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi
There it is again. Another door, another portal- but why? Feya sucks a sharp breath in, stepping through the door after Karen.
When she sees the lab it sends a chill down her spine. It's a similar lab to what her Tony Stark had, just with a... horrible vibe. She looks at Matt, tilting her head. Was he unconscious? Of course... but why?
She takes a look at Karen and reaches out a gentle hand, resting it on the other's arm.
"Karen. Don't direct this at her. Direct it at Stark and Killgrave. They're the ones responsible," she says, her voice soft and not commanding at all.
She turns her head to look at Ravonna, wanting to hear the answer to Karen's question.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
Ravonna lets out a small sigh of relief, they came
"I'm out of ideas" she says simply
she turns to face both women and takes off the mask of the helmet, so they can see her face clearly, hear her voice unchanged. "i tried to fight him, to outsmart him, to trap him, to threaten him. none of it worked"
she looks back at Matt "he's deleting all Matt's memories and if anyone other than him tries to gain access then it'll all be 'corrupted"' she takes the word from stark himself "he's the only one that can undo all of this. and he's not even entirely human anymore. he did something to himself I don't know what. he's eyes glow and his skin turns to metal at will. I can't even cut him."
Ravonna sighs and rubs her eyes with her fist. "he also has this weird army? he can control people's minds, he made them stop breathing with just a few words. He's in a time cell so you guys should be fine"
"but yeah...I'm all out of ideas."
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt
After Ravonna and Stark disappeared Jessica had dutifully raided Tony's stash. She had successfully gone through two bottles and was working on her third. She lowered the bottle of bourbon so expensive she couldn't even pronounce the name when the door opened. She squinted at it, trying to figure it out for a minute. It was imposing, ominous, inviting. She hopped off the counter, grabbed a fourth bottle for her apparent trip and stepped through.
Her face fell. The place looked like a high tech IGH, complete with a torture table and graphs she didn't care to understand. "Holy shit Matt..." She placed the bottles down and raced over to him, ripping the restraints off of his arms with grunts of effort.
Her eyes found Ravonna, listening to the tail end of her spiel. "There's other Tony Stark's around. One's that aren't complete assholes. We can find one of them, they would help us... Or we can beat the shit out of the Tony we do have until we get what we need."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Feya looks over as Jessica enters the room and starts immediately going to Matt and ripping the restraints off.
At her words Feya stops and thinks for a bit.
"I wouldn't mind beating him half to death, but I don't think he'll give anything up." She huffs out in annoyance, trying to come up with something.
"I worked with my Tony Stark a fair bit... If I know the technology that this shitty one is using, I may be able to do something." She looks around the room for something to give her more information.
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Karen gives Feya a little smile and nods at her, silently thanking her for the reminder. Any personal feelings have to be put on hold until this is over, especially if the plan is for everyone to make it out of here alive.
Karen swallows hard when Rav explains what's going on. "Deleting his memories--!?" she gasps sharply. Her eyes go to the holographic projection in the air above the table, but it's obviously over her head. She does, however, see the file on the hovering screen that says all memories are saved in Stark's database. So that means Matt's mind is intact on some server, somewhere. How do they reverse the deletion process and put it back, without tripping Stark's trap that will corrupt Matt's mental data?
Jessica (and Jessica's booze) arrive and Karen is thankful for the extra muscle. She has a feeling they're going to need it.
Her eyes dart to Feya. "You're the hacker," she agrees. "What do you think, can you reverse what Stark's program is doing here?" She gestures to the screen over Matt. "If we distract Stark when he shows up -- which I'm sure he will -- can you put Matt's memories back without losing him?"
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
She steps to the table and looks at the hologram. She lets out a sigh and begins to explain.
"The hard part is getting past the encryption and the trap of corruption. If I can get into his systems from another place, not for Matt's memories. I may be able to add myself as an admin to bypass the trap..." She pauses to think again. "I may not be able to directly reverse it, but I will be able to reverse engineer the process of taking his memories out to put them back in..." Yet another pause.
She lifts up a hand and taps on one of her ear pieces, and a visor-looking hologram pops up.
"While I try to gain entry into his main server, I'll need you guys to look for any signs of how his memory tech works."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
She let her mind trail back to what she saw during the fight and everything she knew about Tony Stark. He was flashy, showy, like a flame and they were all moths.
"All of it was a distraction..." She muttered, "Even when he was fighting us he was focused on this. What's he distracting us from in here?"
She looked at the machines, the holograms, the vitals, then down at Matthew, eyes studying her friend, answering her own rhetorical question. "He's distracting us from Matt with all this shit. Usually there'd be a bunch of chords and tubes and hospital bullshit. None of that is here... Whatever is erasing his memory, holding him to Stark's fucked up tech is inside of him."
She looked around the room, then back at the team, eyes landing on Karen. "Can you shock him a little? If I'm right, it'll short out the connection, might even bring whatever is in him out... If I'm wrong it's revenge for him being a shit head and sending everyone away."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Karen steps up next to Jessica, looking down at Matt's body stretched out on the lab table, a curl of unease in her stomach at the investigator's request.
But Jessica is right. Everything with Tony Stark is part of a show. They need to start working behind the scenes.
"I can try," she tells her grimly, reaching out and placing her hand on Matt's shoulder.
"Not that I've ever done this outside of a battle simulation," she admits. "But I've got it in theory."
Hospitals use a sudden surge of electricity to disrupt an irregular heartbeat and allow the body's natural rhythm to take over after. Hopefully this will do the same thing. "Clear," she mutters with dark humor as she sends a burst into Matt's body.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @thesuperiorstark
Nothing appeared to be happening on the surface, until a silver symbiote forced itself out of Matty's head. The tech around them glitches.
On Black Cat's screen two files suddenly pop up:
ANTHONY STARK - MEMEORIES. EXE (MAY 15 2020) [CONNECTED TO EXTERNAL HARDWARE, CURRENTLY OFFLINE, SHARE DATA TO MARK I FOR ACCESS] [USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY]
MATTHEW MURDOCK - MEMORIES. EXE (JAN 15 2026)
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
as the women talk and brainstorm Ravonna slips away and heads for the door to the stairs, putting her mask back on.
looks like they have it handled, if they need her, they can call her. but when he wakes up, there's one more thing he's gonna ask for, so she might as well get a jump on it.
it wasn't lost on her that she wasn't in the basement like Stark said that's where he would take her. and if that's where he would take her, she wonders if that's where Madeline is being held.
she shuts the staircase door quietly behind her and walks down to the basement, she tilts her head to look through the small window on the door, looking around the room before she decides to enter.
@thesuperiorstark @th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @verygoodlawyer
The basement is filled with suits, chief among them Mark I which was stashed in the corner.
There's a metal case, human shaped, fingers burned off. A foot melted on one side. An opening enough for air to get in at the face. Dried blood is on the floor under it.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
"gotcha"
she turns on her pruner and opens the door, resting the weapon on her other forearm as she approaches the body, her eyes darting every which way to stay aware.
she makes her way over to the case and gives it a small tap with a fist "Madeline? I'm gonna get you out"
she prunes the area of the case that's holding it closed and a large chunk of it disappears. after turning off the pruner, she flicks the case open with the weapon. "Madeline?"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
Madeline was trapped inside, ghostly pale. Her heart was beating slowly, chest rising and falling even slower. She was barely alive. Her left foot was gone, what remained of her leg covered in burns, the bone exposed, her fingers mangled, all of her finger tips on both hands had been burned off. The smell was putrid, blood, waste and bile covered her clothes. Her brown eyes looked at Ravonna, fear and panic shown on her face, but she didn't dare to move.
von takes off the mask of her helmet and clicks it onto her belt, along with her pruner before getting on one knee. This is horrifying, worse than what this woman did to her and Matt, worse than what Ravonna wanted to do to her. it's inhumane. the fear she sees in Madeline's eyes is something that you never forget.
she doesn't let herself react to the smell or the horrifying sight, she doesn't want to make the woman feel worse. instead she just gives her a reassuring smile "I'm getting you out of here"
"can I carry you out?"
The woman stared blankly at Ravonna, her chapped lips parted, rasping out a sound that was barely audible, talking hurt, moving on her own would hurt worse. "Yes." Caked on blood had hardened, leaving part of her hair attached to the inside of the human shaped container, it let out a crusty sound like stale crisps when she moved her head.
@bigbad-punisher
"hey red! i gotta talk to you. it's important"
⠦⠠⠃⠃⠕⠥⠞ ⠺⠓⠁⠞⠦⠴
"About what?"
"I love him. I chose him over Pepper and he still left." He spoke though his voice was cold, there was an underlying loneliness that lingered about him. Eyeing the numbers on the elevator as they traveled, they'd be here for a while, the elevator was slow and the basement far. "I did all of this for him. Learned everything I could about biology... I can fix his eyes now."
"I just need Matty to trust me again. To let me help him. San Francisco won't happen again."
Ravonna listens, weirdly enough she knows what that's like. it reminds her of Mobius; you do everything for them and then they turn around and ask why there's so much blood on your hands.
"happened to me once" von says quietly "I didn't change until it was too late and now I'll never see him again."
she sighs "you smart guys, you're all the same. you know everything about the human brain except the way it works. your very obsessiveness to have him only to yourself, with everyone else dead or forgotten. that's what's pushing him away. I doubt even you'd want that"
"what happened in San Francisco, dare I ask?"
Never see him again. The words sound like a curse. A world without his Matty. He lived it up until now. He wouldn't live it again.
"Pushing him away? No. That's not what I've been meaning to do. I've been trying to bring him closer. I love him."
"You don't know? He must really not talk about me... Everything happened in San Francisco. I went to unveil a new product. He joined me, we were still dating at the time. It was a hit, biggest thing in town. Extremis! My app, discontinued now, but took you from nothing to extraordinary in the click of a button. First week was free then it was $99 per day. A steep price? Maybe, but it gave everyone such a rush. The whole city was happy! I had a party every night. Talk show interviews during the day! There were business deals so grand, I made so much money. It was great! Smiles everywhere."
"Everywhere except for Matty... He thought the app was exploiting people, their insecurities. He said the people who couldn't afford it were struggling. Got worse when he found out that the reason it even worked was because we were messing with the water supply. Told me to shut it down. I refused. The money was too good, he didn't care about the money, he cared about the people I was hurting... I didn't realize I was losing him until we had an argument about it and in the heat of the moment I threw him out of the tower. He landed in the water, but he never came to see me again."
□ There's an error with the machine!
▪︎ Matt has no good memories of Tony Stark.
@thesuperiorstark
" Mr. Stark, there's been an error in the memory wipe. "
"Error? We don't get errors. What's the error, Wednesday?"
" You instructed me to keep the good, but there is none. "
"He's so stubborn." Tony growls, tech behind his eyes glowing as he checks out the problem. "There has to be something..."
He only half listens to Ravonna, "Well, you and your zombies aren't me and Matty. He loves me just like I love him. He just needs help to realize that. And if that means getting rid of the variables in the way like his friends and the Pillsbury dough boy he calls his fiancé, then so be it."
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Ravonna joyfully laughs at the error message. that's the best news she's heard in a while.
"you cant force Matt to do anything that's what I'm say-" she quickly punches him in the face before she realizes what she's doing.
"you don't talk about foggy like that. ever. he obviously did something right and he didn't even need all your outdated and overblown technology to do it"
Tony's face moved with the force of the punch, heartbeating fast he scowled, retribution came seconds later. "Wednesday, copy everything, I'll go through it later, then delete the original memories. I will decide what stays. If anyone aside from me tries to access the data, corrupt it."
"And start implementing the bio suit. This DEI Hire just landed herself a job... Maybe I'll call her Bio Mark One."
Electricity hummed through the air as Tony's suit wrapped around him. "You're going to feel a little shock as the electricity in your brain starts connecting to my main frame. You won't be able to move much without my permission."
" Bio suit launching... "
"bio suit?" Ravonna sounds disgusted. "what the hell is that???"
her eyes flicker around the elevator in not necessarily panic but alarm, blade at the ready as her mind makes terrible images prompted by the words 'bio suit'.
little does she know though, that this TVA suit has been upgraded from what it used to be. ever since the multiverse was unleashed, the suits are more than just armour, they're protection against anything any universe can whip out to a hunter.
"You can stop us now, Wednesday."
The elevator doors finally opened, Tony stepped out of them into the bustling lobby of Stark Tower, where civilians were gathering around. Their eyes found Tony, waiting for instruction. "Everyone, there's a party happening upstairs, come on!" He shouted, arms opened as they cheered and boarded the elevator with them.
He knew exactly what he was doing. There couldn't be a fight with this many civilians around. He had surrounded himself with a sizeable amount of people.
Ravonna sneers at him from under her mask and quickly emits the blade from her pruner. gritting her teeth, she watches all these stupid party idiots get on the elevator. "I thought we were going to the basement, Stark" she says loud enough for him to hear "this is the ground floor"
she shoulders her way through the crowd to get to him without caring who's in her way.
she puts a tight hand on his shoulder and discreetly but forcefully leads him to the corner of the elevator before pressing the pommel of the pruner to his back, the weapon hidden from view "I don't think you know exactly who you're dealing with here." she says quietly
"If I didn't know any better, I would think you were flirting with me." He grins, leaning in close to her.
"I stopped us early. Guess we have to go back up. Take us back to the top, Wednesday. Can't keep my guests waiting." He smiled, at Ravonna, a piece of the silver symbiote coming from inside of him, putting itself between himself and the weapon, his chromium suit covering his back.
"You're welcome to come to the party. It's why Killgrave and I gathered your friends to begin with. A non-stop party."
"I'm not much of a party person." she speaks with venom, the words spoken like insults.
she thinks for a few moments... pondering... deciding.
she picks him up and throws him at the elevator wall before smashing the pruner to the back of his head, the metal man could take it.
she looks back at the crowd. she doesn't care.
"EVERYONE OUT. NOW. IM NOT PLAYING GAMES."
He slams into the wall, suit covering him just as the pruner hit his head. "They can't move. They can't even breathe without me wanting them to. This technology was made to stop wars before they started. To take control of people's minds and bodies before anyone died."
"Humans are just meat computers, electricity runs through them just as it does everything else in this modern world. I took advantage of that."
"Right now, I have a completely disposable human army. Everyone hold your breath until the DEI Hire puts her weapons down."
With his word they froze in place.
"You don't want to be responsible for killing all of these innocent people, do you?"
von pauses.
she pokes one of them in the cheek to see if he's lying, swearing when she sees that he's not "this is atrocious. I'm gonna squish you like a bug under my boot stark"
she thinks for a few moments before shrugging, opening a time cell and throwing tony inside.
she drops her pruner -her only true weapon- on the ground of the elevator before following him inside and having the door close behind her.
suddenly they're in an open clearing in the woods during sunrise. the grass is long, wild and still with dew. the sun never really rises as after a few minutes it always goes back to where it was before. animals watch the clearing from their places in between trees and plants.
"time doesn't pass here and I can always go back to whatever time I want. me. i can do that. you can't" she says standing a few feet away from him, cracking her knuckles "I also don't need my pruners to fight nepo babies."
"you have two options: you agree to take me to the basement and let Matt go now. or I'll beat you until you cry and then you take me to the basement and let Matt go"
When the pruner is dropped the people in the elevator begin breathing again.
He landed in the lush grass of the clearing, letting Wednesday take in their surroundings. He glanced to the number on the bottom of the screen. It was now rising steadily.
"I already told you I'd take you to the basement. You just don't have any patience." He replied, arc reactor charging. "I had a party planned for the night. I had Matty on the plans for the night. You are not on my plans for the night. You are not my priority." He stood up, firing a powerful blast at Ravonna, blue light aimed at her head.
"I don't have any patience, I have a personal vendetta with the concept of time"
she takes a side step and leans to the right to dodge the blast
"you shouldn't kill me if you wanna get out of here. what you will do is send all those people away."
"If you can get out of this place, I'll figure it out." He approaches her and his armored foot meets her knee, kicking it inward. "You're standing between me and my party. No one does that."
Ravonna yells and pulls herself back before kicking her steel toed boot into the arc reactor twice. pushing him back just far enough so she can apply a med pack onto her leg. she presses the button and the bone snaps back into place.
she straight up just sprints away into the trees. using the fauna as cover.
Stark scowls watching her retreat.
" Memory 100% replicated, Mr. Stark. Are you sure you would like to delete everything else? "
"If I can't have him, no one can. Delete it all." Stark replied to Wednesday, voice tinged with malice.
" Starting now, Mr. Stark. "
she feels her blood go cold.
Ravonna opens a time door out of the cell and back into the elevator.
she kicks her pruner out of the elevator and out of sight by everyone so she can pick it up.
"Ms. minutes! where is he?" there's almost a slight twinge of panic on her voice now. too much time has been spent on all these stupid games. Matt's still somewhere in this goddamn labyrinth of a tower.
ms.minutes appears and finally leads her to where Matt is. using the stairs she just slides down the handle all the way down.
"Matthew!!" Ravonna makes sure not to touch anything. she just wants to see him. "Matt?" she jogs around looking for him.
His Matty was in the lab, the floor right above the basement. He was strapped to a table, a machine humming above him. The holographic screens showed his vitals, a projection of his brain, focusing on his amygdala, showing areas and memories being deleted by Stark. It had started at his childhood. Whatever was actively deleting the memories wasn't visible, when he electrocuted him Stark had sent part of his symbiote into him to do the work.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer
she has the urge to remove her helmet out of respect but she doesn't know if that's wise. she opts to just hold her hands behind her back.
"why did you have me send them away Matthew?" she speaks quietly "was it because you were so sure that I could do this on my own or because you wanted to protect them..but then why not tell me to go too?"
she slides out the last med pack she had on her belt and uses it to heal his ankle.
one less thing to worry about at least.
"every second that passes he's winning. he's too strong when I fight him. i kill him, i lose, I keep him alive, he wins. i could send him to the end of time and I'd still fail"
she lets the silence sit for a few moments like it's gonna come to her, like someone's gonna pop out from the shadows and solve it all like a puzzle "that's it. I am genuinely out of ideas...so my two choices are...I go against your last conscious wishes and risk getting you mad at me when you wake up...or...I call back Karen, frank, feya and Jess, risk their lives and hope they have an idea..."
"well you do owe me from that time you went behind my back and ghosted me" she chuckles grimly.
she sighs and opens a time door, looking over her shoulder to see if they'll step through.
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt @theyneedtobepunished @jessicajonespi
Karen was starting to dread the orange glow of the time door. But when one opens directly in front of you, you don't turn and run away. She might be a failure, but she's not a coward.
Karen steps through.
The scene in front of her is chilling. A laboratory that was way too close to the type of shit Hydra liked to pull, complete with human test subject strapped down to a table. But it wasn't her, this time, it's Matthew.
She had nightmares that started like this.
And ended with her screaming.
Karen's mind is entirely her own. She looks at Ravonna with anger and confusion and a hundred other emotions, but they are all her own emotions. No Hydra programming in charge.
"Ravonna, what's going on?"
@th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi
There it is again. Another door, another portal- but why? Feya sucks a sharp breath in, stepping through the door after Karen.
When she sees the lab it sends a chill down her spine. It's a similar lab to what her Tony Stark had, just with a... horrible vibe. She looks at Matt, tilting her head. Was he unconscious? Of course... but why?
She takes a look at Karen and reaches out a gentle hand, resting it on the other's arm.
"Karen. Don't direct this at her. Direct it at Stark and Killgrave. They're the ones responsible," she says, her voice soft and not commanding at all.
She turns her head to look at Ravonna, wanting to hear the answer to Karen's question.
@ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
Ravonna lets out a small sigh of relief, they came
"I'm out of ideas" she says simply
she turns to face both women and takes off the mask of the helmet, so they can see her face clearly, hear her voice unchanged. "i tried to fight him, to outsmart him, to trap him, to threaten him. none of it worked"
she looks back at Matt "he's deleting all Matt's memories and if anyone other than him tries to gain access then it'll all be 'corrupted"' she takes the word from stark himself "he's the only one that can undo all of this. and he's not even entirely human anymore. he did something to himself I don't know what. he's eyes glow and his skin turns to metal at will. I can't even cut him."
Ravonna sighs and rubs her eyes with her fist. "he also has this weird army? he can control people's minds, he made them stop breathing with just a few words. He's in a time cell so you guys should be fine"
"but yeah...I'm all out of ideas."
@karenpage-journalist @th3blackcatt
After Ravonna and Stark disappeared Jessica had dutifully raided Tony's stash. She had successfully gone through two bottles and was working on her third. She lowered the bottle of bourbon so expensive she couldn't even pronounce the name when the door opened. She squinted at it, trying to figure it out for a minute. It was imposing, ominous, inviting. She hopped off the counter, grabbed a fourth bottle for her apparent trip and stepped through.
Her face fell. The place looked like a high tech IGH, complete with a torture table and graphs she didn't care to understand. "Holy shit Matt..." She placed the bottles down and raced over to him, ripping the restraints off of his arms with grunts of effort.
Her eyes found Ravonna, listening to the tail end of her spiel. "There's other Tony Stark's around. One's that aren't complete assholes. We can find one of them, they would help us... Or we can beat the shit out of the Tony we do have until we get what we need."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Feya looks over as Jessica enters the room and starts immediately going to Matt and ripping the restraints off.
At her words Feya stops and thinks for a bit.
"I wouldn't mind beating him half to death, but I don't think he'll give anything up." She huffs out in annoyance, trying to come up with something.
"I worked with my Tony Stark a fair bit... If I know the technology that this shitty one is using, I may be able to do something." She looks around the room for something to give her more information.
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer
Karen gives Feya a little smile and nods at her, silently thanking her for the reminder. Any personal feelings have to be put on hold until this is over, especially if the plan is for everyone to make it out of here alive.
Karen swallows hard when Rav explains what's going on. "Deleting his memories--!?" she gasps sharply. Her eyes go to the holographic projection in the air above the table, but it's obviously over her head. She does, however, see the file on the hovering screen that says all memories are saved in Stark's database. So that means Matt's mind is intact on some server, somewhere. How do they reverse the deletion process and put it back, without tripping Stark's trap that will corrupt Matt's mental data?
Jessica (and Jessica's booze) arrive and Karen is thankful for the extra muscle. She has a feeling they're going to need it.
Her eyes dart to Feya. "You're the hacker," she agrees. "What do you think, can you reverse what Stark's program is doing here?" She gestures to the screen over Matt. "If we distract Stark when he shows up -- which I'm sure he will -- can you put Matt's memories back without losing him?"
@th3blackcatt @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @jessicajonespi
She steps to the table and looks at the hologram. She lets out a sigh and begins to explain.
"The hard part is getting past the encryption and the trap of corruption. If I can get into his systems from another place, not for Matt's memories. I may be able to add myself as an admin to bypass the trap..." She pauses to think again. "I may not be able to directly reverse it, but I will be able to reverse engineer the process of taking his memories out to put them back in..." Yet another pause.
She lifts up a hand and taps on one of her ear pieces, and a visor-looking hologram pops up.
"While I try to gain entry into his main server, I'll need you guys to look for any signs of how his memory tech works."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
She let her mind trail back to what she saw during the fight and everything she knew about Tony Stark. He was flashy, showy, like a flame and they were all moths.
"All of it was a distraction..." She muttered, "Even when he was fighting us he was focused on this. What's he distracting us from in here?"
She looked at the machines, the holograms, the vitals, then down at Matthew, eyes studying her friend, answering her own rhetorical question. "He's distracting us from Matt with all this shit. Usually there'd be a bunch of chords and tubes and hospital bullshit. None of that is here... Whatever is erasing his memory, holding him to Stark's fucked up tech is inside of him."
She looked around the room, then back at the team, eyes landing on Karen. "Can you shock him a little? If I'm right, it'll short out the connection, might even bring whatever is in him out... If I'm wrong it's revenge for him being a shit head and sending everyone away."
@karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @verygoodlawyer
Karen steps up next to Jessica, looking down at Matt's body stretched out on the lab table, a curl of unease in her stomach at the investigator's request.
But Jessica is right. Everything with Tony Stark is part of a show. They need to start working behind the scenes.
"I can try," she tells her grimly, reaching out and placing her hand on Matt's shoulder.
"Not that I've ever done this outside of a battle simulation," she admits. "But I've got it in theory."
Hospitals use a sudden surge of electricity to disrupt an irregular heartbeat and allow the body's natural rhythm to take over after. Hopefully this will do the same thing. "Clear," she mutters with dark humor as she sends a burst into Matt's body.
@verygoodlawyer @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @th3blackcatt @jessicajonespi @thesuperiorstark
Nothing appeared to be happening on the surface, until a silver symbiote forced itself out of Matty's head. The tech around them glitches.
On Black Cat's screen two files suddenly pop up:
ANTHONY STARK - MEMEORIES. EXE (MAY 15 2020) [CONNECTED TO EXTERNAL HARDWARE, CURRENTLY OFFLINE, SHARE DATA TO MARK I FOR ACCESS] [USE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY]
MATTHEW MURDOCK - MEMORIES. EXE (JAN 15 2026)
@th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @ravonna-lexus-renslayer @verygoodlawyer @jessicajonespi
as the women talk and brainstorm Ravonna slips away and heads for the door to the stairs, putting her mask back on.
looks like they have it handled, if they need her, they can call her. but when he wakes up, there's one more thing he's gonna ask for, so she might as well get a jump on it.
it wasn't lost on her that she wasn't in the basement like Stark said that's where he would take her. and if that's where he would take her, she wonders if that's where Madeline is being held.
she shuts the staircase door quietly behind her and walks down to the basement, she tilts her head to look through the small window on the door, looking around the room before she decides to enter.
@thesuperiorstark @th3blackcatt @karenpage-journalist @jessicajonespi @verygoodlawyer
The basement is filled with suits, chief among them Mark I which was stashed in the corner.
There's a metal case, human shaped, fingers burned off. A foot melted on one side. An opening enough for air to get in at the face. Dried blood is on the floor under it.
@madeline-gallagher-covington @verygoodlawyer
"gotcha"
she turns on her pruner and opens the door, resting the weapon on her other forearm as she approaches the body, her eyes darting every which way to stay aware.
she makes her way over to the case and gives it a small tap with a fist "Madeline? I'm gonna get you out"
she prunes the area of the case that's holding it closed and a large chunk of it disappears. after turning off the pruner, she flicks the case open with the weapon. "Madeline?"
@madeline-gallagher-covington @thesuperiorstark
Madeline was trapped inside, ghostly pale. Her heart was beating slowly, chest rising and falling even slower. She was barely alive. Her left foot was gone, what remained of her leg covered in burns, the bone exposed, her fingers mangled, all of her finger tips on both hands had been burned off. The smell was putrid, blood, waste and bile covered her clothes. Her brown eyes looked at Ravonna, fear and panic shown on her face, but she didn't dare to move.
Something like a bullet hits her arm, it wraps around her like a bracelet, and then engulfs her in silver armor. Movement is limited, but there is a hole big enough for her to breathe and see through.
An iron man silver suit follows, picks her up, and takes her directly to Stark tower. She is thrown down on the floor after entering through the balcony.
Footsteps approach, followed by Tony's voice. "Madeline Gallagher-Covington."
"You hurt Matthew Murdock... Killed a cop, and now no one knows where on Earth you are."
He crouches down to see her through the armor he has her encased in, pulls his sunglasses down so their eyes can meet. "You should have stayed in jail."
@thesuperiorstark
"Bloody hell—" She yelled when the trinket hit her arm, she did not go through all this work to get taken out by some gangs stray bullet. What an American way to die!
What? No, not a bullet. Fear gripped her heart as it encased her, "Help!" She yelled out, straining to see through the hole newly placed in front of her nose. It was hard to see where she was going.
She fell back when the suit was thrown, bumping her head on the metal. "This is mental." She groaned, eyes widening when she saw Tony Stark. "I thought you were dead. No way in Hell did you make it to Heaven..."
She fell silent as he talked, swallowing hard, fear rose up from the pit in her stomach the longer he went on. No way on Earth did Matthew Murdock have someone like Tony Stark, of all people, in his contacts. She had pegged the idiot lawyer as a greasy little nobody.
"Heaven, Hell, both irrelevant, especially from where you stand. You're in Stark Tower. My tower. Wednesday, delete all video footage with this woman on it from the cameras throughout the city."
" On it boss. "
"Bring her along," The silver suit suit picked the suit she was in up and dragged her to the elevator a few paces behind Tony. "Take us sub-level." A ding sounded and they traveled to the basement. "You're going to pay for what you did."
" Video footage deleted. "
The doors opened, and the suit carried her out, the lights turned on overhead. "You will come to understand the meaning of the word retribution with an intimacy so deep you'll wish for death that will never come."
He stopped in front of spare parts and toolkits, signaling for the suit to turn her around. She was placed on the floor with a metallic clang. "My Matty wouldn't want you dead and I will honor that wish of his. Allow that to be your only comfort. Maybe thank him if you ever get the pleasure of seeing him again."
"You're good, get out of here." He addressed the spare suit, it flew off as instructed. He grabbed a blowtorch and clicked it on. "Round one. Let's start."
She tensed as he talked, air getting harder and harder to pull into her lungs. Every word made her heart sink with fear. "Last I checked you're supposed to be a bloody hero!" She called out, eyes fixed on the fire in his hand. "Heroes don't do this!"
"No, I'm a hero to people who deserve it." He pressed the flame against the metal, aimed where her foot was. "You don't deserve it."
He watched the silver metal glow red, warping under the intense flame. "You broke his ankle. Now you're going to lose your foot. It's going to be trapped in metal like my Matty is trapped in a cast right now."
"You turned his fingers blue. That is from a lack of oxygen getting to them. For you, I'm going to burn your fingers off. Oxygen is never getting to them again. Not in any meaningful way."
"Consider it an equal exchange." He kept his blow torch in hand, the metal now melting into her foot, this would be a long and slow task, but he had all the time in the world
Hot, sweltering hot. The heat that overtook her foot, the scream that followed, ripped from the back of her throat. Pain and fear all at once. Her whole body trembled from head to toe.
"Please, stop it!" She cried out, tears in her eyes, struggling against the metal casing she's ensnared in. "Stop it! Do you hear me? I said stop!"
