The sun had already begun to dip toward the horizon when a black R8 Audi rolled up the long private driveway of Tony Stark's Malibu estate. The vehicle's growl echoed across the stone-paved slope like a feline clearing its throat. It was an unexpected vehicle—too analog for Tony's typical taste—but nothing about its occupants was ever typical.
The passenger side door opened with a mechanical clunk, and Illyana stepped out with grace, dressed in casual jeans, a fitted leather jacket, and boots dusted from the dry Californian roads. She pulled her blonde hair behind her ears and looked up at the lavish glass-and-steel architecture before her.
Glenn exited from the driver's side. He adjusted the collar of his black suit, his red tie immaculate despite the breeze. A black-gloved hand closed the door behind him with a practiced flick. He surveyed the estate like someone sizing up a poker opponent—cool, detached, but amused.
"You know," Glenn muttered as he pressed the doorbell by the reinforced glass entrance, "for someone so obsessed with security, Tony sure makes this place look like a fishbowl."
Illyana quirked a brow. "You sure he's even home?"
A second later, a smooth, British-accented voice came through the speaker system.
"Good evening, Sir Glenn, Miss Illyana. Mr. Stark is expecting you. Please, come in."
JARVIS.
The front door slid open with a refined hiss. Glenn tilted his head slightly, amused.
"Always a gentleman, JARVIS," he said.
"Naturally, sir. Welcome back to the estate."
They stepped into the sleek, softly lit foyer.
"Glenn. Illyana. I'd say this is a surprise, but let's not kid ourselves. You came here to collect another favor, didn't you?"
Tony Stark's voice followed from deeper inside the mansion, laced with sarcasm.
"Don't flatter yourself," Glenn replied with a small grin. "I came to mock your new suit—and collect what I'm owed."
--
The lift carried them downward into the heart of the Stark lab—an open, polished expanse filled with holographic blueprints, armatures, and the unmistakable smell of soldered metal and motor oil. Tony Stark stood hunched over his workbench, tools splayed around him like a chaotic shrine to progress.
"Try not to breathe on anything important," Tony said without looking up.
"Can't promise that," Glenn replied, sauntering in like he owned the place.
Illyana followed quietly, arms crossed, eyes scanning the various Iron Man suits lining the back wall. Mark III, half-disassembled. Mark IV, partially armored. And something newer under a tarp.
Tony turned, wiping his hands on a rag. "You two want tea, scotch, or the blood of my enemies?"
"Surprise me," Glenn said.
Illyana smirked. "I'll take water. With lemon."
Tony narrowed his eyes. "You're the most terrifying of the three of us and you ask for lemon water?"
"I hydrate responsibly," Illyana replied.
Tony went to the fridge and gaver her drink.
"Thanks."
Tony turned back to his workbench, welding goggles lowering over his eyes. Sparks flew as he began reworking an arm plate.
"So what brings the Handyman and the Russian Enigma to my home unannounced?" he asked through the whine of the tool.
"My codename's Sweeper. Better get used to it." Illyana replied.
"Interesting, another peculiar code name, huh? Who's in charge of your marketing department. Remind me to ban him from applying in my company."
Illyana pointed towards Glenn but the latter ignored it.
"We missed your sparkling personality," Glenn said. "And your incredible humility. And your jaw-dropping ability to nearly get yourself killed every forty-eight hours."
"You're just jealous I get the press coverage," Tony muttered.
"No. I'm jealous you get to run a billion-dollar company while playing dress-up as a flying tin can."
"Better than dressing up like a GQ hitman with a pop corn fetish," Tony shot back.
Illyana choked on her lemon water.
Glenn's grin widened. "You're just mad those pop corns got the job done faster than your military-grade toys."
Tony placed the arm plate onto the table and turned, pushing his goggles up.
"You know what I envy about you, Glenn? You don't have board meetings. Or shareholders. Or paparazzi waiting outside your bathroom."
Glenn nodded. "No. Just murder contracts, international surveillance, and lurking enemies in the shadows who thinks I don't know them."
Tony paused. "SHIELD?"
Glenn just smiled and said, "It's something else."
Tony stared. "...I hate how curious I am now."
"Anyway," Tony said as he gestured toward a new model displayed in midair, "this is the next step. Reinforced alloy. Arc redistribution. Lightweight stabilizers."
Glenn squinted. "It still looks like it'd lose a fight to an elevator door."
"That's because you don't understand finesse," Tony replied.
"Finesse is what I call fighting off three assassins while reciting grocery lists."
"Was that the Istanbul job you mentioned?" Illyana asked.
"Yep. Got milk, eggs, and three broken femurs."
Tony rolled his eyes. "You're impossible."
"And you're still working with that toaster oven in your chest."
Tony gestured to the arc reactor. "This toaster oven saved my life."
"And now I'm here to collect payment," Glenn said, his tone dropping just slightly. "I want a new arc reactor. Custom. Newer than the one I lent you. And the favor you owe me—I'm keeping that on the table."
Tony nodded slowly. "You know you could've just sent an invoice."
"You don't pay invoices. You build masterpieces. I want one of those."
A moment of silence stretched between them.
Illyana broke it with a subtle cough. "You two gonna hug or duel with wrenches?"
Tony and Glenn looked at each other, then said in unison:
"Duel."
Illyana rolled her eyes and took another sip.
--
As night blanketed the Malibu coast, Glenn and Illyana walked back up the driveway toward the waiting R8 Audi. The engine coughed to life like a dragon stirring from nap.
Tony leaned against the doorway, arms crossed.
"Next time you break in, at least bring pizza," he called.
Glenn glanced over his shoulder. "Next time, maybe you'll have a suit that doesn't need three crutches and a software patch just to pee. By the way, I will be heading to New York soon so I won't be in touch for a while."
Illyana waved. "Bye, Tony."
He waved back.
"Drive safe. Or recklessly. Either way, make headlines."
Glenn opened the car door and muttered, "Headlines are for amateurs."
The A8 Audi growled and pulled out of the estate, disappearing into the dusk.
Back in the lab, Tony stared at the Mark V schematic and muttered, "I really hate that guy."
Then he grinned.
"But I'd hate to fight without him."
--
Elsewhere, deep in SHIELD's secured servers, agents stared at projected holograms flickering over digital data streams.
"We finally pulled some records," one analyst said. "Name: Glenn Peterson. Birth certificate, social security, driver's license... all check out."
"Too clean," another murmured. "There's almost no data trail. Every trace beyond basic identity has been rerouted or scrubbed. It's a shell."
Director Fury appeared on screen. "Are you telling me that's all we've got?"
The analyst swallowed. "We suspect a highly skilled hacker has been covering his digital footprints. Possibly using dynamic reroutes on facial recognition scans."
Another agent interjected, "But we did find this."
A video began to play on the large screen.
It showed grainy footage from a convenience store security camera. Glenn entered the store casually, walking to the counter. He greeted the cashier, and the cashier handed him a black pack of cigarettes from the shelf. Glenn payed, thanked him, chatted a moment, then left through the front door with the same calm demeanor.
A few minutes passed, three masked robbers barged in, their faces obscured with handkerchiefs. One corralled the few customers inside, forcing them to crouch near the beverage aisle. Another posted by the door as lookout. The third—clearly agitated—stormed up to the counter, shouting threats and waving a pistol at the terrified cashier.
The door chimed again.
Glenn walked back in.
He strolled up to the counter like he hadn't noticed the situation. Calm, collected and unbothered. He exchanged a few words with the gunman, who became tense and irate. Glenn, as if oblivious, leaned forward toward the cashier and whispered something casually.
The gunman shoved him, yelling.
Then it happened.
In a blur, Glenn snatched three cans of sardines from a nearby endcap. One flew into the face of the lookout, knocking him out cold. The second cracked across the skull of the gunman corralling the customers. The third—an underhand flick—smashed directly into the temple, dropping to the floor unconscious. Their guns skidding across the linoleum.
The fight was over before anyone could scream.
Glenn turned to the security camera overhead.
And flashed a grin.
The SHIELD room fell into stunned silence.
Another whispered, "What kind of training is that?"
"And there's one more thing," another agent added. "We traced a real estate transaction. Glenn Peterson bought a property outright in a secure California tower. Large penthouse, belonged from a former actor, minimal registration and paid in full."
"With what funds?"
"Unknown origin. All untraceable."
Fury's voice cut in again. "IRS?"
"They wanted to file for tax evasion and financial irregularities. But the case was shut down last minute. A senator intervened."
Fury's single eye narrowed. "Name?"
"Classified. Redacted. But someone high up wants him left alone."
Fury didn't smile this time.
"Keep eyes on him. He's not just a merc. He's something else entirely."
————
Somewhere in the outskirts of Moscow, the silence inside a rusted underground apartment was punctuated only by the hum of old electrical machines and the distant wail of cold winds pushing through cracked windows. Ivan Vanko stood bare-chested, his upper body smeared with soot and metallic grease, the sinews of his arms tightening as he adjusted the dials of a scorched voltmeter. Around him lay a wasteland of mechanical parts, loose wires, shards of steel, and old Soviet-era equipment cannibalized into modern function.
He was working with manic precision.
Above his workbench, a faded photograph of Howard Stark and Anton Vanko was pinned, alongside a torn blueprint of what looked like a crude prototype—the early arc reactor design. A series of handwritten annotations scrawled in both Russian and English cluttered the margins, corrections made by Ivan himself. The blueprint had been smuggled back by Anton during his final days at Stark Industries, copied in secret, passed on in defiance. It was Howard Stark's vision, but Anton's ingenuity that brought the ideas to life.
"You're really going through with it," came a voice behind him.
Ivan turned. His father, Anton Vanko, sat propped up on a battered cot, looked weak but healthy at every air he breath courtesy of the Handyman.
"I have to," Ivan replied in a thick accent, tightening the screw on a microfilament coil. "He took everything from us. Fame, wealth, my life and yours."
Anton shook his head. "It was politics. Greed is always there with the board. Not just Stark."
Ivan turned fully to face him. "You still defend him? Even now?"
"No. I defend you from becoming what they made us out to be."
Ivan said nothing.
He turned back to the workbench and brought over a steel harness. He clicked open a reinforced casing—his personal schematic for the Whiplash suit. Inspired by the arc reactor's potential, but forged from rage. The blueprint bore his seal, marked with a viper's fangs sketched beside a schematic of energy whips curling like twin snakes.
He began welding the framework. Sparks danced off the surface like fireflies.
A small arc reactor prototype, smaller than Stark's but just as functional, hummed alive on the table beside him. Its glow illuminated Ivan's determined eyes. He had reverse-engineered it using the stolen plans and years of clandestine learning. He used scraps—refined palladium, magnetized graphite from decommissioned warheads, and parts bought on the black market.
Anton sighed because he knew he couldn't convince his stubborn son. "What will happen if you fail?"
Ivan didn't answer. Instead, he walked over to a mannequin bearing the skeletal remains of the harness. He began fixing the coiled energy whips to either forearm. The cords were reinforced with titanium and braided tungsten, carrying the arc current capable of slicing through armor.
"I won't fail."
"You may die."
"Then I die with purpose," Ivan growled.
His father leaned back, eyes heavy with sorrow. "Revenge is hollow, Ivan. It won't restore your mother. It won't return the years. Besides, our lives doesn't belong to us anymore."
Ivan stared at the core of his reactor. "But it will make them remember. That Anton Vanko was not a thief. That his legacy was stolen and I will prove all of it to that man."
The reactor's glow intensified. Ivan reached for his chest and lifted the power module. He held it like a relic before anchoring it to the harness. It latched with a satisfying metallic clunk. A moment later, he activated the whips.
They burst alive.
Arcs of plasma and electrical fury danced from wrist to floor, slicing a discarded stool clean in half. The light cast shadows across the ceiling like specters.
Ivan smiled.
Anton looked away.
"You're not the boy I raised," he whispered.
"No," Ivan said. "I'm the man this world created."
The whips died down.
Outside, the snow began to fall again. A flurry of white upon the cold rooftops, indifferent to the fire smoldering within.
Ivan turned back to his workstation, already planning his flight to Monaco.
The world would soon hear the name Vanko again.
And this time, it would burn.