Of Choices and Tribulations

Chapter 1

Tony Stark

Tony Stark was not a man without his enemies. In fact, his way of thinking was, every person needed a healthy dose of someone that really really hated them. The reality was, you couldn't live your life pleasing everyone; you lived your life the way you believe you should. And that of course meant that there had to be one person in the world who would simply despise you for doing just that. Like take for example: walking outside your home to your office, there was bound to be one person along the way who must have cursed you, i.e. for Tony it would be how rich of a pompous assh*le he was. The question was, did Tony care ? No. Because you couldn't win on something like this and to him, it was trivial. He didn't need anyone to like him - just not having anyone come at him seeking vengeance or trying to hurt the people he cared about was enough.

For Tony, however, that small request was too much to ask for. No. People who hated him, despised him, always wanted to do something show that they were serious. Like today, which should have been a normal routine visit to one of his biogenetics facilities, he was suddenly locked into a hostage situation.

Hands raised slightly above the chest and using the most neutral tone he could, Tony Stark was trying his best to talk some sense into a man that was threatening to kill everyone in the facility with a deadly gas. Oh, and that wasn't adding on the fact the man also had a gun on him. Irony was, the man wasn't some random person that snuck into the facility. He was a man that Tony Stark himself had hired .

Quinn Sharpe was an associate of Dr. Helen Cho, a person that she had worked with on and off for over a five year period of time. In that time, even Bruce Banner himself worked with him. The man held an excellent track record and his various connections to key members of his team also added to his CV. So when Helen approached Tony to add Quinn to their Project Cradle team, he didn't question it, much less do his usual thorough background check. Even with the surface check, the man was clean, nothing was amiss about him so he was given security clearance as well as Tony's trust.

Yet that trust was short lived. It turned out that Quinn Sharpe was a person that was deeply affected by what had happened in Sokovia the tragedy had put him over the edge.

"Look, I'm sorry for your loss, Quinn. I am. But there's a lot of innocent people here. People who have nothing to do with Sokovia. It was a tragedy, we did what we could to save the people. If anything, just let everyone here go. I'll stay. I'm your target, right? I can stay. Just let everyone else go. Do the right thing, Quinn."

Tony, even as he spoke, was readying to activate his Ironman pulser on his right wrist. All he needed was a second of distraction, and he could knock the man out before he could do any harm. Yet in the time that he had started to 'negotiate' with Quinn, Tony realized despite the insane threat of killing everyone in the facility, the man was remarkably calm. He reminded of Helmut Zemo, a man meticulous in his planning and would indefinitely go through with his threat. Seeing the similarities between them, Tony felt a slight more cautious in dealing with the man. If he was like Zemo, who had killed over a dozen delegates from the International Vienna Centre just so that he could make a point of destroying the Avengers, then he didn't doubt Quinn would do the same, just to make a point. Using innocent people as pawns to pay for a mistake that the Avengers did. No, a mistake you made, Tony a voice in the back of Tony's head whispered.

Tony needed to neutralize the guy, he needed an opening of some kind. If he made an error, in an instant, Quinn would release the gas.

As if reading his mind, Quinn spoke, "You really shouldn't bother activating your blaster, Tony. You can and the minute you do, I'll flood this entire building with a toxin that will be a greater legacy to your name than Ultron."