Chapter 24 – The Man In The Mirror 2

Koro looked as Van scours Afghanistan, looking for Tony Stark. He clearly knew the movie but something is bugging Koro.

Van knew about his skill right from the start. It feels like he designed it or wished for it. However, his skill is not very helpful. He is using the money provided by Coulson in searching Afghanistan. It took him 16 long hours to do that. Why would someone create or wish for such a weak skill?

Van asked for more money, a few gps tracker and a satellite phone which Coulson readily provided. He took them and hid them in his cell. The security in here is perfect. No signal was able to go in or out within the cell. Van planned to observe Tony until he is almost finished building his armor. Then he can place the trackers and satellite phone near Tony.

Coulson only have to wait for 3 days before he received a signal from the gps trackers and a call came through the satellite phone. Agent Coulson introduced himself to Tony and said that they have a rescue party with an ETA of 30 minutes. Tony Stark started powering up the armor to match the timing of the rescue.

Hundreds of SHIELD personnel attacked. The members of the Ten Rings are being taken down by agents in various ways. Some used pistols with silencers, knives, tasers, wires and the rest were either punched or kicked by the duo that was tasked with Tony Starks protection.

Hawkeye stopped at the entrance of the cave and picked a spot with his bow at the ready. Black Widow entered the cave to knock down poor people and save the rich guy. Fury and Coulson tossed a flash grenade inside the tent. Several agents entered and captured the members of Ten Rings.

Black Widow saw a walking armor inside the cave. She prepared her weapon, getting ready for a fight.

Black Widow checked the area for places to hide and asked, "I am only going to ask this one time," she looked at the armor and said, "Where is Tony Stark?".

Tony was about to answer when Yinsen appeared from the deeper area of the cave. Black Widow moved to capture Yinsen but Tony attacked. Forcing her to dive into another pathway.

Something flew near the armor and exploded. It is a flash grenade. Yinsen backs away with his eyesight affected by the flash. Stark was able to block the light and even close his eyes but he is still affected. He fires a few rounds to prevent anyone from taking advantage of his situation.

Black widow cuts the hair of a terrorist and presses it into the wound. She then formed the hair into a ball and threw it at the face of the armor, blocking Starks view. After that she threw several knives into the gaps in the armor. The wires were cut and the armor stopped functioning. Stark fell flat on his face.

Black Widow approached the fallen armor and began dismantling it while asking where is Tony Stark.

Yinsen stood up and approached with his hand in the air, trying to look as peaceful as he can. He asked why she wants to know the whereabouts of Mr. Stark. She replied that she came to rescue the man as she kept on ripping parts of the armor.

"It doesn't look like it?" says Yinsen while observing Black Widows actions. Then he added, "are you an ex-girlfriend or ex-wife?" Yinsen was wise enough to keep the rest of his thoughts to himself. If he actually said that he thought that they should get some counselling or go to another cruise, then Black Widow would have attacked him.

Black Widow heard Yinsen and realized that it was Tony Stark under the armor. Her actions became gentle and Yinsen approached and helped remove the remaining parts of the armor. When Stark was free, he was brought to the airport and sent back to New York with Yinsen, Coulson, Black Widow and a few other SHIELD agents.

The rest of SHIELD was busy interrogating the terrorists and dismantling their base. Hawkeye was tasked to lead a team to attack the other bases of Ten Rings.

Koro observed as Van messed with the plot. He even poured water on the radio and sat phone of James Rhodes. It delayed his participation in the search and rescue mission. If that was Van's goal then he shouldn't have bothered. SHIELD would never share such an easy mission with a huge impact, to anyone. Not even the military.

It looks like Van managed to change things but some things remained. Obadiah Stane still attacked Tony Stark and stole his ark reactor. Its just that he did not have the armor because SHIELD took it. He attacked and was forced to use other means. He hired like two hundred men to kill Pepper Potts who was dozens of bodyguards, courtesy of SHIELD.

Stane ordered his men to bring down Tony Stark in his Mark III armor. Tony was surprised to see people on his payroll still following Stane. Then he realized that they did not know that he was inside the armor. Tony took off his helmet so that his people could recognize him. The bodyguards were split and they fought each other.

Stane overloaded the Arc reactor to blast the roof with energy in an attempt to defeat Tony Stark. He almost succeeded but Natasha appeared and tased him.

"Sorry I was late. I just came back from a mission," Natasha looked at Tony and Pepper if they are ok. Then she placed handcuffs on Stane and called the other agents to process the scene.

Stane who was handcuffed broke free and took out another sonic taser and was about to attack Natasha but he was shot by Coulson who just arrived. Tony Stark fell unconscious from all the fighting he did.

Koro noted that the story changed a little due to Van's interference. He would have wanted to see if Van could change the whole story but the past few months since Stark's rescue, Van has been busy with something else.

Tony gave him 50 million dollars as thanks for locating him and giving him the sat phone. After receiving the money, Van seldom helped Coulson. He was busy with something else.

In the cell where Van is staying, a huge mirror can be seen. He has placed the pin into one girl and the mirror is showing nothing but the girl. He would mess with her sleep, her work and every day of her life. She could feel someone or something looking at her 24/7. Voices informing her of how low people think of her, kept on and on for hours every day.

Koro watched Van and finally learned everything. It seems that Van also came from another Marvel Universe. In that universe he saw the war between Thanos and earths heroes. He wanted to commit suicide that day and he walked to the warzone.

He was just walking and everyone was fighting. People and monsters are dying left and right but everyone ignored Van. He arrived at the moment when Tony Stark and Thanos was fighting for the glove. Van took out his pistol and shot Thanos in the eyes, distracting him.

Tony Stark snapped his fingers and everything went black for Van.

He thought of committing suicide because of this girl who he loved. He was shy and just helped the girl every time. His friends even said that she was simply taking advantage of him. But he was happy to spend a few seconds talking to her. That was enough.

When the snap happened, the girl lost her parents. To make ends meet, she did something that Van learned years later. She became a streamer. Not just any streamer. But what she called "reality streaming". It is like crush video but instead of animals, she moved on to people. And instead of hurting the body, she wanted to crush his heart.

Her stream started with an explanation of who she is and who Van is. That Van has been in love with her for the last few years. She started leading him on and then went on dates with him. Everything was streamed. From their first date, every text, every date and even the spices that she planned was streamed. The spices were her sleeping with Van's friend, brother, father and uncle.

Her stream got a lot of viewers who paid tens of thousands for a monthly subscription. The big reveal where she informs him of the stream gave her 25 million dollars. This is the reason Van walked to the battlefield. His initial plan was to try to enter the avengers base and get shot.

Koro sympathized with Van. He cannot explain how Van got his powers. He just watched as Van does his little annoyances to the girl's life. Van explained later that what he is doing is guiding the girl to ruin her relationships with her family, friends and everybody. Everyone of his actions was designed to simply annoy her and slowly lead her to have those little fights with everybody.

He was super successful and she started going to psychiatrist twice a week. He kept on going and she kept on getting worse. He wanted her to ruin her life without anyone to blame. Some alcoholics get comfort by blaming alcohol. He wanted to take even that from her. She will only think that everything was her fault until she commits suicide. She did and he followed after her.

Koro was crying as everything went black.