Chapter 25

"Stop!" Nick Fury interrupted.

"It's too late Fury, let's just be honest." Marie sighed and then turning to Tony again she added, "I know you will be smart enough to understand."

"I don't know what am I supposed to understand but if you don't get to the point quickly, I think I'll lose my temper and throw one patched eye through the window," he said, looking with dark eyes at Fury. "What do you mean by my son could be the key?" He turned back to Maria.

"You know very well that we are not alone out there Tony," Fury started.

Tony turned back to Fury again, "Yes, I do, so why do you feel like you need to keep reminding me?!"

"Because that is where the point is," said Fury. Tony started to shake his head in disbelief not understanding where Fury was going. "Remember the stone that we find in Loki's scepter and that is in Vision's forehead now?" Fury asked. Tony nodded still not sure what he was talking about. "We have all the reasons to believe that more stones like this exist in the universe."

"What do you mean 'more stones?'" Tony asked

"Our communications with Asgard lead us to the conclusion that more of them exist and that more powerful Alien entities than the Chitauri could gather them and used them against any planet and… you know, Earth is a planet," Maria Hill explained, drifting off at the end.

"Plus you know about the recent events involving Dr. Stephen Strange in New York," Fury added.

"Yes," Tony responded. "But I still don't understand what my son has to do with all that."

"He could be the only one able to resist to the power of those stones." Fury said flatly.

"What?!" Tony asked in disbelief.

"All the projections we did told us that he definitely can resist to the stone that was present in Loki scepter."

At these words, Tony swallowed his saliva hard, images of what happen in the Stark Tower a few years back coming back to his mind. Loki was not able to use his scepter against him. It was like it was not able to penetrate the arc reactor! Would it be possible that the vibranium that composed the arc reactor was the cause? Was it possible that the vibranium flooding in Dane's body would protect him? His mind raced, but he came back to himself when Fury started to talk again.

"The vibranium present in your son would allow him to resist to the power of some extraterrestrial power. We ran simulations using what we know on the tesseract too, and came to same conclusion." Tony sat on the chair behind him, overwhelmed by the flow of information he was receiving. "Your son is important for the security of Earth, Stark, and that's why we had to make sure he grows up in the best environment possible."

"So why did you hide him to me?" Tony asked with a hint of sadness in his voice.

"Because you are so unpredictable," Fury exclaimed. "You do crazy things and you always think about yourself first! Even when you are defending others you always want it to be on you, Stark! You really don't play well with others… " Fury stated

"So why did you recruit me in the first place!" Tony shouted as he stood up on his two feet again.

"Because of your dad," Fury shot back. "What did you think Tony? We've watched you ever since Howard passed away but we never approached you before Afghanistan for a reason! When you started to build those suits of yours…"

"You saw in me something that you can finally use," Tony cut him off.

"It's not like that Stark and you know it!" Fury said "You would have been a good recruit even without your suit, you had always been smarter than your dad and your dad believed in you; he had this big project for you. Unfortunately, he passed away before being able to show it to you."

"Yeah thanks to Roger's best friend," Tony interrupted him again.

"But he was proud of you Tony," Fury continued, ignoring Tony's remark. "You were not raised in the correct environment and had you been you could have been a totally different man! It could have made you the man you should have been, and we didn't want the same thing to happen to Dane!"

At these words, Tony's anger took the best part of him and in a millisecond, Fury was pressed against the wall again, Tony's elbow under his chin.

"Stark, stop it!" shouted Maria while standing up and walking closer to the two men.

Unperturbable, Fury continued. "Potts was keeping you afloat Tony, but without her you became even more uncontrollable."

"You should have let her come back to me then!" Tony yelled at him, frustrated.

"You didn't want her anymore in your life and you made it obvious to whoever was talking about her that you didn't want them to talk about her!" Fury answered. "Don't try to fool anyone Tony and especially not me! I was there! The whole time! You are not allowed to have remorse when you didn't allow anyone to even mention her name in your presence. Don't blame anyone for your current situation, nobody put you there! You chose to be there by yourself! You just pushed her away and then became the biggest jerk on this planet." Fury concluded harshly.

"Yeah but I was still going on missions for you. You still had me as a good little soldier and that was the most important for you!"

"You are not what I would call a 'good little soldier Stark!' SHIELD missions were just a distraction for you and anytime you were able to disobey an order you did it!"

Tony sighed while removing his hold on Fury. "And that's what you wanted my son to become," he said as backed away. "A good little soldier."

"Tony," Fury started.

"That's where you are wrong Fury," Stark ignored him, turning to look at the old and new director of the SHIELD. "There is no such thing! We are human with - with feelings, and personalities and egos! Even Rogers, whom you considered as the perfect soldier eventually disobeyed and left. We are not - not robots! And you cannot control our lives like you're the freaking puppet master," He ended.

"Tony," Hill said quietly.

"You are no better!" Tony cut her off. "You knew about all this and you let it go! You're both completely unrealistic! It's so pathetic and ridiculous!" Tony concluded while walking to the door.

"Stark, don't go!" Hill called.

Tony laughed. "Really?! You should have thought about it before you betrayed me like this," his voice wavered. "I'm going to pick up my son and his mum from your facilities, and we are leaving this… freaking loony bin," he said while opening the door. He turned to see them last time and said "Forget about us, forget you ever even knew us! I don't want to see anyone from the SHIELD anywhere close to Dane or Pepper! And if I do, I'll make you regret it," he finished before slamming the door.

Fury adjusted the collar of his overcoat and then walked to the chair in front him. Maria passed in front him and said solemnly "I think this time you went too far, Nick."

"Don't worry, he'll think about it and will eventually come to the conclusion that is the right one!" Fury said, cockily sure of himself.

"I'm not so sure," Hill sighed as she sat back on her chair. "We are talking about his son here and not just about one of his suits… "

"Yes maybe, but if one day the threat becomes real, he won't have a choice…"

She sighed once more. "I hope that day never comes."