Current music:	Suicide Commando: Bind, Torture, and Kill
Entry tags:	author:gil/vashtan, crossover, fanfic, genre:slash, iron man, rating:nc17, tony stark/frank castle

Collateral 12
Just two installments left - this one and the next.

Collateral: Chapter Twelve
Title: Collateral
Status: Finished
Authors: gileonnen and vashtan
Fandom: Iron Man/The Punisher crossover (Iron Man filmverse, The Punisher MAX comicverse)
Pairing: Tony Stark/Frank Castle, Tony Stark/Other
Rating: Adult
Summary: Frank Castle traces a grey shipment to Stark Industries, and demands an explanation. This brings him face-to-face with another vigilante—playboy Tony Stark.
Warning: Dark (the Punisher is involved, after all). Kinky (knife play, restraints, techno fetish, implied heavy abuse), death, bombs, heavy maiming & scarring, and bambi dies.
Disclaimer: No money is being made & no breach of copyright is intended.
Dedication: To all the Marvel writers that don’t own their creations and don’t get a cut of the huge profits of films featuring them, and especially to the original creators and writers working on the Punisher and Iron Man ‘intellectual property.’



Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Tony Stark had done more than his share of stupid, reckless things in his time. He'd built a flying suit of armor, right under the noses of his Afghani captors; he'd replaced his own heart as coolly and rationally as some people would change their socks; he'd even propositioned the princess of a small European country, and kept a straight face when she'd slapped him.

As he dug up Nick Fury's number, though--the one he'd been told to use only for emergencies--he felt his pulse racing as it had never raced before. Nick Fury wasn't just the head of SHIELD, he was a bad motherfucker in his own right, and when he was angry Tony felt an uncharacteristic urge to call him 'sir.' Right now, he suspected that Fury would be fucking furious.

He sat in his broad, open living room, the phone in his hand. Dialed. Waited.

On the first ring, there was the click of connection. "Fury here. Make it fast."

"This is Tony Stark. We've got a situation ..." sir. "I've apprehended the Punisher."

”You, an army of SWAT, half the local police force and some FBI. So?” The sound of a cigar being lit. Tony remembered the smell of those fine, fat Cubans.

"I thought you'd be interested since he works with SHIELD--he does your dirty work, right?" All speculation, but such compelling speculation. Tony was almost certain of it. "The way I'm supposed to be working with you."

Fury sucked on the cigar, then exhaled.

"I need to get him out somehow. Faked death, breakout, transfer into government custody, whatever."

“Finally caught himself in a sling”, Fury said. “Will he cooperate? What does he offer? I have a situation here, too, in Georgia.”

"He's offering to cooperate--that's basically it. Work with the law instead of around it. And I'm sure he'd be willing to take care of a few hicks in Georgia while he's at it."

“The other Georgia. Small Central Asian country the Russians are just invading.”

"Great. If they've got my weapons, I'm going to fucking kill them." Tony forced himself back to the subject. "What do we do about the Punisher?"

“No more collateral”, Fury said. “FBI is sitting on this one, should be low key. Count of Monte-Cristo.” More smoking. “Get him to commit suicide; I’m sending a courier.”

"I'll do what I can. You want it to look like a real suicide, or are we just calling it suicide?" Tony remembered being paralyzed, functions slowed to a creep by a high-frequency pulse of sound. If he had to, he could do a damn convincing suicide.

“Inject him with the stuff I’m sending. We snatch him before he gets a Y-cut. And, Stark?”

Tony went quiet, listening.

“You have an uncanny talent for recruitment.”

"What does that even--" The line went dead. Tony closed the phone and rolled his head back, looking up at the ceiling with an incoherent growl of frustration. "What does that even mean?" he demanded. The ceiling didn't answer.

* * * *

Tony swore to himself that this would be his last stupid phone call today. Absolutely promised it. He'd even reward himself for quitting while he was ahead, maybe with a long drive in his new prototype car, and then a fifth of vodka when he got back. First, though, he had to get back into the damned prison.

The phone rang. Rang again. The moment he heard the connection go through, Tony leapt on the opportunity. "Hey, David?"

”Hi Tony.” David sounded tired. “How are you?”

"Better for hearing your voice. How are you?"

“I need to get wasted tonight”, David said. “We’re just wrapping up at my father’s house. I think I’ll make it to my hotel today, and then I’ll get very drunk.”

"Is Stoltz going to be taking care of you? Or at least doing the paperwork?"

“He’s good with the paperwork. He thinks I should leave the team here, it’s getting too personal. Like it has been anything but personal from the start. I’ll be on sick pay, so it’s no big thing, but… I really really want to get drunk tonight. Having the wrong right guy just gets to me.”

Getting too personal. Personal from the start. Get drunk tonight--it all felt too familiar. "What do you mean, the wrong right guy?"

“We have Frank Castle. He did all this. And it’s wrong to lock him up for it. And even if I could get through to him, now imagine I heal him or crack him, and he’s sane and shows remorse, they are going to shave two life terms off his sentence and he still gets, what, five hundred years. If he’s judged insane, they’ll shoot him up with some nasty shit and he’ll be a drooling vegetable in a straight jacket. And if we execute the Punisher like he is, we’re turning into the same thing he is, even if the law says we can, it’s wrong to kill him.”

Tony grinned, although David couldn't see it; his voice was nonetheless colored by that grin, wicked and reckless. "So if I asked you to help me break him out and get him fighting on our side?"

“Any way I don’t lose my job and get done for helping get out the worst mass murderer in US criminal history?”

"You'd be doing it under orders from SHIELD."

“That’s alright, then.” David gave a small laugh. “Do you have a plan? I can get us into the prison, even to the Punisher. But walking out with him will be the hard part.”

"Fury's going to send something by that I'm supposed to inject into him--faked suicide, escape full of derring-do, a la the Count of Monte-Cristo." Tony paused. "You're going to have to do the hard part. You're the profiler. The expert. It'll be your job to explain to the police why a guy like the Punisher would kill himself."

“Well, his suicide would finally verify my PTSD theory. I can do that, no problem.”

"Great. I'll call you when it's time." Tried not to think how twisted it was, planning to break a man out of jail with the son of that man's victim. "And David? Long-term, getting drunk doesn't actually help much."

“Long-term, very little does. Talk to you later.”

* * * *

Three hours after the phone call, Jarvis informed Tony that there was a man in a car at the gate. The camera revealed him to be a SHIELD agent that had helped to clean up the mess with Obadiah--Fury must have thought that sending a man he’d know would send a message. The man was just adjusting his tie and a little packet sat on the seat next to him.

Tony met him at the gate, plugging in the code for the man-sized door and slipping through. "Thanks for getting here so quickly." He indicated the package on the seat. "That's the--serum, or whatever, right?"

“Yes. It shouldn’t get too hot, keep it nice and cool, if possible.” The man handed over the package. “Give us a call when he’s injected. Any muscle will do. We’ll have our men in the morgue when he arrives. Hospital is on standby, to reanimate him. He’ll be in pain, but we don’t expect any permanent damage. Dying could take a while, though, and I’ve heard it’s not pleasant.”

"This is actually going to kill him, then." Tony took the package, holding it apart from his body. "Not just fake his death, but kill him."

“It’s some nano-stuff that’s untraceable and slows his metabolism. Feels like death, too.” The SHIELD agent shrugged. “They are thinking about handing that out to any SHIELD agent. It’s the advanced form of a cyanide capsule.”

"No, that makes sense. If you just use a few electric impulses to target the secretion of cortisol and adrenaline and a few other hormones, you'd slow the catabolic processes down enough eventually that you'd inhibit cellular respiration. I need to have Fury get me in touch with whoever came up with this--I want to pick that guy's brains." Tony backed off to the gate, giving a wave. "Nice seeing to you. Coffee next time, right?"

“Err, right. Yes, sir.” The SHIELD agent seemed happy to go in reverse and get out of the driveway.

Tony took out his phone, and hesitated. David would probably be drunk off his ass by now, no use for getting into the station. Frank wasn't in any more danger than usual; he could keep for a night. Tony had a fridge for the serum; if there were any superconductors in the nanotechnology, the cold would probably be good for them.

He closed up his phone. This could wait for morning.

* * * *

David met him the next morning; at twenty-seven, his body dealt with a lot of alcohol rather well, and he looked fairly polished in his usual FBI suit. The longer hair suited him, the scars were beginning to look less angry, too.

“I told Stoltz I’m just wrapping up my case. He thought I should have one more go at him for that last time. I’ll hand this over to the new profiler. Old guy, he’s really good, but he was working on something al Qaeda-related. Had a background in linguistics, so he was really better suited for that.”

"Hope I get a chance to work with him. I'm still pissed off at al Qaeda," Tony answered.

David flashed his badge at the entrance and signed for Tony, leading him into the Punisher’s cell block.

Tony Stark followed behind, his strides brisk and purposeful, jacket casually unbuttoned and tie loose around his neck--professional playboy, maverick, and looking every inch the part. He carried a briefcase, dummy files and the syringe tucked inside.

This time, although they were shut into the Punisher's cell, the guards stayed outside the door with their weapons at the ready. If anything went wrong, they were prepared to come barreling in, guns blazing. The fuzz had their orders, their plan; Tony and David had their own. They stood with their backs to the security camera, casually blocking the Punisher's body with their own, and Tony opened his briefcase.

David had his arms crossed, looking at Frank with a lot of different emotions in his face, while Frank did nothing, just sat on his bed, elbows on his knees, watching Tony.

"We're going to have to make this quick," Tony said under his breath. "Stoltz just let us in so David could get a little closure, so we don't have a lot of time. Fury sent the greasy stuff", and he lifted the syringe until it was just visible in the briefcase, "so that we can fake your suicide. He's got men in the morgue to resuscitate you. Ready?"

Frank looked at the syringe, a sudden tensing rippling through his body. “Ready.” He reached inside, flicked a protective cap off and seemed surprised that there was no needle visible, but then set it against his inner arm, frowning, as if listening into his body, he pressed the button, and the hypo emptied with a small hiss.

“Don’t feel a thing.” Frank said and placed the hypo back into Tony’s briefcase.

"He said it'll hurt eventually." Tony closed the briefcase up again and let it hang at his side. "How... how do you want to do this? What's your MO for suicide?"

“Suicide by cop.” Frank looked at David. “That’s out. I’d use a heavily customized gun, dum-dum.”

“Razor blades?” asked David.

“That’s for pussies.” Frank frowned again. “Yeah. I start to feel something.” A muscle twitched in his face, and there was a little sweat suddenly on his skin. “I guess… razor. More… likely.”

“Do you have something?”

“I’ll use this.” Frank patted the mattress next to him and pulled out an improvised knife, made from half a razorblade. Another twitch in his face. “Go.”

David took Tony’s arm. “Let’s go.”

The guards let them out, and they were halfway down the corridor when a roar behind them made the guards jump. Pain, rage, but above all pain—the Punisher sounded like somebody was tearing out his guts.

Tony couldn't help a wince--wanted to turn around, but kept walking. He nudged David. "This'd be your cue to run back and study the scene, while I call SHIELD." His cell phone was already in his hand, his fingers chasing down Fury's emergency number.

“Yeah, I’ll freak the guards some.” David rushed back, shouting: “What happened? What happened?”

Tony pressed Send, holding the phone up to his ear.

“Fury here. He’s screaming his head off?”

"Yep, that's basically all there is to report. Everybody ready at the morgue?"

“You want to watch the show, follow the body.” Fury hung up.

There was silence on the corridor now, ominously, and then orders and shouting from Frank’s cell. Not much later, the door opened and more guards arrived, as if the Punisher had been starting to kill people, rather than himself, and there were sounds of medical staff frantically working on him.

Tony followed the medics and the guards in, watching numbly from the door as they applied tourniquets and pressed at his chest. It looked exactly like a real death--attended with frenzy, confusion, blood. The Punisher's face was contorted with pain, his eyes wide and staring, pupils down to tiny pricks of darkness. He felt himself detaching from the scene, able to wonder dispassionately whether the medical team would try to shock his heart to beating and if that would have any impact on the nanobots in his bloodstream.

Then, someone said into the quiet of ceased screams, "He's gone."

The room grew still. Doctors straightened, beginning to pack up their equipment. Tony turned away, and to his surprise, Stoltz had been standing beside him. The man's face was drained of color.

"What did you say to him?" the Fed asked. "Whatever it was, it made him--" he gestured sharply at the Punisher's body.

"We didn't really say much," said Tony. "Just told him what the best-case scenario was, for a conviction."

David was visibly shaken, which, though Tony, made everything more realistic. No doubt the profiler was shaken. The room stank with blood.

“He knew he’d never get out again”, said David. “He decided to… save us that work.”

“Suicide?” Stoltz shook his head.

“PTSD.”

“And how does that work. What, after thirty-odd years?”

“Ever looked at the suicide statistics of Holocaust survivors? Time doesn’t really matter. Some take much longer before they lose the fight.” David looked down at Frank’s body which was just placed in a body bag. “That with the added stress of incarceration… I honestly don’t believe he did it because of us. He’d planned it anyway.”

“Yeah. There goes the case.” Stoltz waved at the doctors, and the body bag was zipped up and wheeled out.

"There goes the perpetrator, you mean. Maybe it was his last act, as the Punisher--punishing himself." Tony watched the body go. He didn't have to watch it reach the morgue; he knew that sooner or later, Frank would be stopping by the house on the cliffs--if nothing else, to pick up his suit.