Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

It was amazing how easy target extraction was when you didn't have to worry about the coverup. Felix Blake was only a mid-level operative, and so no special protections were on his personnel file. From there it was just a matter of me using my suit to shrink down, use magic to go invisible, and then follow him until he walked into a public restroom. While he was taking a leak, a portal opened up under his feet and dropped him straight into a Mars cell.

The man was a SHIELD operative; they would look, but the assumption would probably be made that he decided to go rogue for whatever reason. Especially when Natasha had dealt with the cameras in the area so that they went offline at the time of his disappearance. Regardless, he wasn't important enough for Fury to call in favors or expend top-tier resources to find, and so the risk was virtually non-existent.

Anton Vanko was a bit more questionable, given that he was on SHIELD's watchlist, but they had his address. When he went out drinking one night, a tiny little human added a little Kilgrave to his drink and gave him some orders when he went to take a leak. A body of the appropriate size and a nice fire covered up his disappearance, and the disappearance of his records. The police report would posit that he fell asleep smoking after a night drinking and burned to death, too drunk to notice he was on fire.

Ivan Vanko was a different story, seeing as he was in a maximum security Russian prison for selling weapons-grade plutonium to terrorists. Fortunately, it was a Russian prison and so a few relatively cheap bribes and a little judicious records editing had him taking a chopper ride to another facility for FSB interrogation when the chopper suddenly fell off the radar and disappeared without a trace. Natasha's false trail pointed to the Ten Rings extracting one of their associates.

I had thought about keeping the Vanko's free from mind control but ultimately decided against it. I had out of universe knowledge showing me how dangerous Ivan Vanko working for you could be, and the man had been in prison for helping terrorists get nukes. Not to mention that his motivations for going after Tony Stark in the movie aren't the kind of thing that someone who is emotionally stable and sane would have.

His father, on the other hand, was a bitter old man who had already proven that he would sell secrets for cash. Again, not someone who was exactly known for keeping a deal. Besides, I had little sympathy for either of them.

Blake, I did feel a bit bad about. he had just had the dumb luck to know something that I wanted, and his loyalty to SHIELD ran too deep. He would die before be betrayed his oaths to them by working with me.

Once they were all prepared with the appropriate orders, I called together what I was calling the Stark Cell. Much like Pym and Kilgrave, this cell had its own isolated Martian facility. Incidentally, those had gotten much easier to build once I got my hands on Pym Particles, and consisted of the three primary resources and a dozen or so more traditionally loyal scientists.

Recruitment was never that hard considering the kind of signing bonuses I was willing to offer, and that I had both Raith Industries and Pym Technology to use as filters. With Kilgrave questioning to ensure that everyone brought into what was listed only as the Annex, and which all records (assuming that you could gain access) showed was buried in an old mine out in Wyoming. It was easy to weed out the various spies. SHIELD, HYDRA, SHIELD agents who were secretly HYDRA, the Hand, various national intelligence agencies, and even Stark Industries tried once. The car accidents and muggings gone bad were truly tragic. The end result was that I had nearly two hundred scientists working on my various R&D projects. Given that I focused on those without family commitments, that they all knew that immortality was one of our goals and that it would be on offer for every one of them, they were relatively okay with being permanent settlers on Mars.

A dozen scientists, three unwilling recruits and Maya and I were sitting at the conference table. With everyone here, I started to speak. "Welcome to the Stark Cell. Your purpose is primarily going to be to understand and produce proprietary Stark technology. We will start things off with two projects. Blake, you will be focused on understanding and producing Nitramene. Ivan, you will be focused on Arc Reactor technology to miniaturize it to a handheld device. Anton will be working with both groups, given his broader relevant knowledge base, while also preparing a report on everything he knows about Vita Radiation and Project Rebirth before he starts teaching classes to share his knowledge. That should get us started."

The meeting lasted another few hours as we went over everything in more detail, but once it was done, I headed to my private quarters. Natasha jumped off my shoulder and returned to full-size. "Things seem on track, but when are you going to introduce the Vankos to vibranium and Pym Particles?"

"Not until after they produce a basic arc reactor and get the particle accelerator built so that Howard Stark's new element can be produced. Although I will probably have Pym work with them on the accelerator. Frankly, I like both of them even less than Pym, and I don't trust any of those three, much less all of them collaborating. I would prefer to leave them to their specialties and rotate our scientists through the cells, before having them combine the research. Less chance of things going badly." I waved her to a chair as I poured us some Scotch.

"How's Black Thorn coming along? I saw the memo about the drug production issues having been finally worked out," I said, passing her one drink while sipping my own and taking my seat.

"Our figureheads are ready, I finished the infiltration ops last week, and the kill teams are standing by. Laundering is going to be an issue, but we should be able to clean enough to meet their expectations. I'm still not sure how we are going to clear our profits," she explained.

I waved off the last point. "Who cares? Money is only as useful as what it can get you, and my legitimate funds are more than sufficient for my needs. You know that Black Thorn is really about information, infiltration, and making the drug trade more civilized."

She smiled slightly. "I know, but a girl likes her money piles. I still don't know how you decided that the way to deal with the drug cartels was to replace them. Oh, it will work and so long as the demand exists, someone will supply it, but it seems both too altruistic of you and simultaneously too criminal."

I laughed. "Neither. People are free to ingest whatever substances they want. I might think they are idiots for using drugs, but they are free to be idiots. Given that I consider the laws criminalizing drugs to be foolish, at best, I have no issues with the crime itself. As for altruism, I want the Hand and HYDRA dead, along with the various other terrorist organizations and syndicates. All of them use drugs to fund their operations, and so I am just attacking their funding source.

"With our drug labs off-planet and my portals for delivery, the two hardest parts of the drug trade are solved. Kilgrave takes care of infiltration of the inner circle, your handling of our security arrangements will ensure that they are the best around, and ultimately everyone involved is disposable. At least that thorn is."

"True enough, what do you want me to do next? I still need to grab Rogers' old blood, but I have that scheduled for tomorrow. And then, it's all just routine housekeeping." She sipped her scotch.

"How are the Oracle targets coming?" I said, slipping off my shoes.

"Parker had some blood work done two days ago; I diverted a sample. Castle and Wilson are both still with JSOC in Afghanistan, and both are still impressing. Natchios is playing good little diplomat's daughter while dropping Hand bodies with Stick. Lucas's Force Recon team is in Iraq, and he just re-upped. Jones just got a job, but it's not going to last; her boss is a problem. Murdock still has top notch grades," she rattled off, updating me on what my future talent was up to. "You know I've never asked, why them? What makes them so special?"

I stared at my drink for a long moment as I weighed the pros and cons in my head before answering, "I assume that you have surmised that I have seen the future?"

At my question and raised eyebrow, she gave a nod of agreement.

"Frank Castle's family is going to be gunned down in 2015 in an attempt to kill him to cover up his knowledge of certain black ops. He will survive and go on a roaring rampage of revenge that will see New York's streets run red with the blood of criminals. More importantly, he will be one of the most lethal combatants on the planet and saving his family will buy his loyalty forever. I have him earmarked for the full Extremis protocol and think he would make a great teammate for you.

"Wade Wilson is just about as deadly as you or Castle, and after his upcoming dishonorable discharge, he will go mercenary. Sadly for him, he will develop a fatal case of cancer. Extremis will save his life, and he will buy that cure with loyalty.

"Carl Lucas will go on to be a cop before being framed and sent to Seagate Prison. While there, he will be experimented on as part of a secret program to produced enhanced humans. He will leave super strong and bulletproof. Sadly, his morality will keep him off your team, but he will make a great heavy hitter for a more public hero team. Helping to clear his name, along with with cleaning up Seagate and some community outreach work, will gain his loyalty. More importantly, though, I want his enhancements for Extremis, and given that he is the only success from the Seagate enhancement program, I need to keep things from changing with his timeline until after that point.

"Peter Parker might be just a kid now, but he will be bitten by a genetically engineered spider and will end up enhanced to a level beyond even Captain America. I'm not sure whether or not we will be able to gain anything from studying him, but getting him onto the public team shouldn't be hard. The kid is born to be a hero.

"Elektra Natchios is at loose ends with little real loyalty. Stick will direct her to get close to Murdock in a year or two, but they will go their separate ways when he refuses to kill his fathers killer. At that point, she should be an easy recruitment target, although I might hold off until after Extremis is ready. Again I want her on your team.

"Matt Murdock, on the other hand, will become a vigilante on his own. He's why I have you setting up that law firm. He might or might not be willing to undergo Extremis to restore his sight, but regardless, he would fit the public team just fine and shouldn't be too hard to recruit. Worst case, we let him be; it's not like he is exceptional enough that we need him, and his morality will get in the way.

"Jessica Jones is already enhanced, but she has some hero potential. I'm actually thinking of recruiting her fairly soon through the law firm to act as their in-house PI. Then, ease her into the public team when it is formed in a decade or so."

I had long decided that Natasha was my second in command. It made sense to have her up to speed on my longer-term plans. Besides, I made it a point to be honest with her, as I wanted to keep her honest with me.

"So Castle, Wilson, Elektra, and myself as what? Some kind of black ops kill squad?" she asked after a moment of processing.

"Something like that. None of you will have many issues with the kind of dirty work that I have you doing right now, and if the full Extremis package pans out along with the armor, you will all be top-tier players. My goal is to build a team around that core to fight the big shit that is coming."

She c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Who else on this "big shit" team?"

"Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Thor, Captain America, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, and myself," I listed off without explanation.

"Oookk, that seems a little random. Are you going to explain that or should I just wait and see?" she questioned, reasonably given the current nature of those future heroes.

I smiled. "Wait and see, all of them will impress you in time."