Of Regrets and Lukewarm Tea
Ivan slammed the phone into its cradle, and rubbed at his temples to curtail his headache before it became more than a minor nuisance because the last thing they needed was a distraction.
He’d never thought he would live to see the day that he’d miss Siberia, but damn if it didn’t get close sometimes.
.
Funny thing is, he’d walked into this with his eyes open.
From the get-go, he’d known this was a terrible idea— known this could only possibly end in chaos and disaster— but he’d agreed anyway.
He’d expected the blackmail and illicit favors and bribery. He’d been ready for the shameless bribery, and the shadowy network that had somehow managed to get him a plane ticket despite being on half a dozen no-fly lists. Had been ready to deal with the worst of the worst, when it came to taking on the likes of Howard Stark.
What he hadn’t expected was...everything else.
.
“Thanks for having me over.” The son of the man who had ruined his life slid into the chair across from his, not remarking on the dingy walls of his apartment, or the chipped mug in his hands, or the ominous groan of the pipes as the evening went on. “Now, let’s get down to business because I’ll be honest, this is going to be a doozy.”
“I assumed this was why you targeted me.”
“It sounds so sinister when you say it like that, Ivan– can I call you Ivan? I’m sorry, I just assumed—”
“Sure.” Considering everything, it was only prudent. What with their shared goal, and all.
“Okay, great. Okay, here’s the plan: we’re giving you the life his heir would have had, and rubbing it in his face at every opportunity because the best revenge is living well and this is the perfect chance to put an old wrong to right. How’s it sound?”
Ivan leaned back for a moment, and looked at his associate consideringly. At the sharp cut of his smile, and the gleam in his eyes. Then, he finally smiled back.
“Tell me more.”
“We’re giving you the ultimate origin story, man, you’re going to love it.”
“Has anyone told you you have a flair for the dramatic?”
Tony made a mock-offended gasp. “Okay, rude, I was just about to—”
Ivan rolled his eyes, and sipped at his now-lukewarm tea.
.
“How bad would it look for Howard if some rando were to walk up to an embassy and prove he’d stolen and discredited the hard work of a Soviet defector?”
.
Ivan was no slouch when it came to engineering: his father had taught him well when sober, and even his drunken rambling had sometimes been useful.
As such, it was not hard for him to learn the schematics of the miniaturized arc reactor, even if most of them were hastily sketched out on old napkins and scratch paper with less-than-helpful annotations. It wasn’t easy either— more than once, he’d found himself shooting dubious glances at his ally, simply because how many laws of thermodynamics had he broken?— but it wasn’t the staggering impossibility it had first seemed to be.
And if he also sometimes found himself laughing at the irony of the fact that he was being given the credit for something that would have revolutionized academia on a silver platter, and who it was that was giving it to him? Well, Tony had been off “seeing the sights” and the ashes of their notes would never tell. Nor would the rudimentary prototype slowly taking shape on his bench, or the slightly-more-polished version that he was comparing it to.
Even if he had Questions as to the circumstances surrounding its creation— really, Tony could only mention hostage situations and “if you see this one blond creep who doesn’t seem to shut up about rings, run” so many times before he got curious— but by the end of it, he had a shining circle that could very nearly fit in the palm of his hand, made entirely out of scavenged parts and theoretically capable of powering his shitty apartment for a month.
Had a miniaturized arc reactor, something that used the very technology that had damned his father, and knew it inside and out, knew the theory by heart, and—
Ivan laughed.
.
“Step one, check.”
.
“How involved do you want to be?”
“Pardon?”
“If you want, you can...just live the cushy life from here on out, take credit for whatever comes your way. It’d be easy: go to galas or whatever fancy shindig you want, flip off Howard whenever you run into each other, the works. If you want, this can be it.”
Ivan frowned. “There’s a ‘but’ in there, isn’t there.”
“You’re going to be our face, Ivan—”
“Call me Vanya.” Ivan cut in, and tried not to flush at the way Tony startled for a moment because damn it that meant he knew about diminutives and sure maybe it was a bit personal but he was helping him but he didn’t want to make this a big deal and—
“Vanya, then.” Tony continued, with a slight smile that broadened as he went on. “Janus Enterprises is going to provide all the cover Juno needs to operate. Just being its face is already more than enough from you, but...if you want, you can be more active.”
“Oh?”
“For... special circumstances. Emergencies, heavy lifting, whatever. I mention this because there’s already one on the roster.” Tony’s smile shifted to a smirk, and Ivan had a feeling he knew where this was going even before Tony rapped his knuckles against the briefcase he’d taken to carrying around.
.
“Why are you so dramatic.”
“Hey!”
.
Ivan Vanko was a sensible person. He knew his limits, knew what he wanted in life and didn’t tend to regret or second-guess his decisions.
Right now, however, he was seriously questioning his life choices.
He would not deny Tony was a friend, certainly much less stressful to deal with than Juno herself, but.
He was also such a brat.
(Ivan very carefully didn’t think about how sometimes he thought врат instead of brat, because he could only deal with one headache at a time thank you very much)
...anyway.
“How is it that you get yourself into these scrapes?” Ivan snapped into the receiver even as he stared at the newspaper headline and the grainy photographs splashed beneath.
“It’s not like I go looking for them!”
“I just had to deal with another audit, I do not need the attention—”
“How big a distraction do you want?”
Ivan put the phone down on his desk, leaned back, and slowly counted to ten. First in Russian, then in English. Then, backwards, because he still had the strong urge to strangle something and the person responsible was currently several hundred miles away.
Ugh.
Why had he agreed to this, again?
.
Less than six hours later, he was reminded.
Specifically, Howard’s face when the announcement of Janus Enterprises’ support for refugees and survivors of domestic violence went out, courtesy of its brand-new September Foundation.
.
Another day, another disaster and moments like these, Ivan was incredibly grateful he wasn’t the one running point because he did not envy the cleanup.
Then he saw the damage reports and news coverage, and. Well.
“Iron Man? Really?”
“Honestly, I think it has a nice ring to it.”
Ivan pinched the bridge of his nose, and bit back a groan.
.
One of the more intriguing aspects of this whole mission was that for all that it was primarily a cover, Janus Enterprises was still very much a company.
Actually— if he hadn’t known any better, Ivan would have thought it was entirely legitimate.
All the paperwork was in place, all the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed, there were honest-to-goodness company newsletters and the only thing that might have hinted at a potentially unscrupulous dealings was how terrifyingly efficient everything was.
Ivan had his suspicions as to who was behind this, but he didn’t ask because unlike some idiots, he had a sense of self-preservation.
.
This was a terrible idea.
A no-good, very bad, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel idea that he sorely regretted even considering, and yet.
Ivan glowered at his shiny new mobile phone, desperately trying to put off the inevitable because he had common sense and—
The latest crash came through loud and clear on the receiver.
“Brat, I thought you said you had this handled?”
“Looks like our intel’s off, backup incoming and—” another explosion went off, followed by the crack of a gunshot and mostly indistinct swearing before it happened.
“—I’m grounded. Too much firepower, I’m not sure I—”
Iron Man was their heaviest hitter.
Tony was his idiot of a best friend, who regularly bit off more than he could chew and then acted like everything was under control even if he was on fire and if Ivan lost him because of his stubbornness and some asshole Neo-Nazis—
Damn it.
Ivan pinched the bridge of his nose, and made his way to the back of his workshop.
The area where he kept his ‘thought exercise’ prototypes, the ones that typically didn’t see the light of day because he was usually either drunk or half-asleep when he made them and he was so going to regret this.
“Hold your position, Iron Man. Backup en route.”
.
Drunk-him had some very questionable tastes. In this case, however, Ivan couldn’t help but admit that the whips looked cool.
A bitch and a half to actually use, sure, but everyone in the base ran away screaming when they caught sight of him, so. Whatever.
Also? He’d admit that even if this was more the brat’s thing than his, he was starting to see the appeal.
.
“So...Whiplash, huh?”
"Shut up and drink your tea before it gets cold.”
