Tony Stark stood in his workshop; his gaze fixed on the reassembled Mark I armor. The battered suit represented both his captivity and his liberation, a brutal reminder of how close he'd come to death, and how Smith Doyle had pulled him back from the brink. Twice.
Pepper had mentioned that Smith's information was stored in the mansion's database. Tony turned toward the nearest interface.
"JARVIS, pull up everything we have on Smith Doyle."
"Right away, sir."
Holographic displays materialized in the air, cascading windows filled with text, photographs, and data points. Tony began scrolling through the files, his engineer's mind cataloguing and analyzing.
"Predator Hunter,'" he read aloud, his nose wrinkling. "Charming nickname. Really rolls off the tongue."
He continued reading, his eyebrows rising incrementally. "The Fraternity has over a thousand years of history? That's... actually impressive. And their current leader is eighteen years old." A slight smirk crossed his face. "Precocious leadership. I can relate."
His expression softened as he read about the organization's stated mission. "Punishing evil, protecting the innocent. Modern-day Robin Hood types. That's surprisingly idealistic for an assassin's guild."
The files on the High Table and Continental Hotel network darkened his mood considerably. His jaw tightened as he absorbed details about the global criminal infrastructure that had operated in the shadows for decades.
"Underground assassination exchanges operating worldwide, and nobody in government or law enforcement shut them down?" Tony's voice carried an edge of barely contained anger. "Thank god Smith dismantled it. If he hadn't, I'd have made it my personal mission."
But as comprehensive as the dossier appeared, Tony knew it was incomplete. He'd witnessed capabilities that weren't mentioned anywhere in these files, superhuman strength, flight capability, and that shape-shifting companion named Puar. The official intelligence painted a picture of a skilled assassin, not someone who could bend steel with his bare hands or intercept missiles in midair.
"JARVIS, conduct a deeper search. I want everything on Smith Doyle, from every available source."
"Sir, that may require accessing... restricted databases."
Tony waved dismissively. "All available information. Just don't leave any traces of the intrusion. I'd rather not explain to certain agencies why I'm digging into classified files."
"Understood, sir. Beginning comprehensive search now."
Several minutes passed while JARVIS's sophisticated algorithms penetrated firewalls and bypassed security protocols across multiple government and private networks. Finally, new windows populated the display.
"Data compiled, sir."
Tony leaned forward, examining the fresh intelligence with renewed interest. Video footage showed Smith moving with impossible speed, shrugging off small-caliber gunfire as if the bullets were raindrops. His strength was clearly superhuman, one clip showed him punching through a reinforced steel door with casual effort.
"Now that's more like what I saw," Tony muttered. "Small arms fire doesn't even slow him down. Strength and speed off the charts."
He pulled up a secondary file flagged with multiple intelligence agency watermarks. "Super soldier serum? No, that doesn't track. Captain America is impressive, but Smith's in a different category entirely. Whatever gave him these abilities, it's not the same formula."
Even these classified files felt inadequate. The footage and data represented Smith's capabilities, but somehow fell short of what Tony had witnessed firsthand. It was like trying to describe a symphony by reading the sheet music, technically accurate but missing the full impact.
Tony sat back, his mind working through implications and possibilities. Smith Doyle had saved his life twice, operated according to principles that aligned with Tony's own evolving worldview, and possessed capabilities that bordered on miraculous. Not just a valuable ally, potentially someone Tony could call a friend. Maybe even a brother.
But dwelling on Smith's mysteries could wait. Tony had more immediate priorities.
His hand moved unconsciously to his chest, feeling the faint glow of the arc reactor beneath his shirt. The miniaturized version he'd built in that cave was functional, but crude, limited by the materials and tools available in a terrorist stronghold. If he wanted to build a proper suit, something that could truly fly and fight rather than just stumble around like a walking tank, he needed better technology.
First step: design and construct a new arc reactor using proper materials and precision equipment.
Tony turned toward his workbench, already mentally sketching improvements to the original design. "JARVIS, pull up the schematics for the Mark I reactor. Let's see what we can optimize."
"Yes, sir. May I suggest starting with the palladium core configuration?"
"Already there, buddy. Already there."
The following morning, Smith's orders propagated through the Fraternity's intelligence network and reached every registered assassin on the planet.
The message was concise and unambiguous:
The Continental Hotel network has been officially rebranded as the Assassin's Brotherhood. All previous services remain available, neutral territory, equipment procurement, and intelligence exchange. The bounty system for assassination contracts is permanently discontinued.
All gold coins currently in circulation are hereby invalidated. Existing coins retain only their function as entry tokens to Brotherhood facilities. No additional coins of the old design will be minted.
The Assassin's Brotherhood is pleased to announce a new medical service: wax bath treatment. This revolutionary therapy can heal knife wounds, lacerations, fractures, penetrating injuries, and non-fatal gunshot wounds within twenty-four hours.
Cost: One new gold coin plus one hundred thousand US dollars per treatment.
The message detonated like a bomb across the assassin community.
Within minutes, thousands of killers worldwide were staring at their phones in stunned disbelief. The safe zones they'd assumed were lost forever had been restored, but under new management and with drastically different rules. Many felt a surge of relief at the return of neutral ground, followed immediately by frustration at the invalidation of their carefully accumulated wealth.
But when they reached the section about wax bath treatment, disbelief transformed into something else entirely.
"Impossible," muttered a freelancer in Berlin, rereading the message for the third time.
"Has to be bullshit," said another in São Paulo.
Yet the Fraternity wouldn't announce a service this publicly without being able to deliver. That kind of false advertising would destroy credibility instantly. Which meant the treatment was real.
For professional killers, the implications were staggering. Injuries that normally required months of recovery could be healed in a single day. An assassin with a fractured arm or leg was vulnerable, often killed by rivals or former targets seeking revenge during their convalescence. The wax bath eliminated that vulnerability almost entirely.
Some of the more entrepreneurial minds immediately recognized additional opportunities. They occasionally took contracts providing security for wealthy clients, spoiled heirs who engaged in dangerous extreme sports and regularly suffered broken bones. Offering access to a treatment that could heal a compound fracture overnight? That service could command millions from the right clientele.
But the obvious question remained: how did one acquire the new gold coins?
Several action-oriented assassins were already heading toward their local Brotherhood facilities to inquire when a second message arrived.
BOUNTY TARGET: The Hand
GOLD COIN REWARDS:- Ordinary members: 1 coin per confirmed kill- Squad leaders: 3 coins per confirmed kill- Hand ninjas: 5 coins per confirmed kill
SCOPE: Global
STATUS: Active immediately
KNOWN LOCATIONS: Midland Circle Financial Company (Hell's Kitchen, New York), Goko Building (Tokyo, Japan)...
Intelligence updates: Daily at 12:00 EST
The assassin community's confusion evaporated instantly. The path to wealth and survival had been illuminated with perfect clarity.
In Casablanca, Sophia, manager of the Moroccan Assassin's Brotherhood facility, read the message twice before turning to her bald second-in-command.
"Arrange transportation to New York. We need to demonstrate our loyalty to the new administration."
In Osaka, Koji Shimazu stared at his phone, his weathered face creasing with concern. The underground world had barely stabilized after the High Table's destruction, and now another war was brewing.
But this situation was different. This was personal.
"John Wick saved my daughter's life," Shimazu said quietly, though his voice carried absolute conviction. "He saved mine as well. I will not allow anything to compromise his position."
He turned to his daughter Akira. "Contact every registered assassin in Japan. Tell them Shimazu Koji personally requests their participation in this bounty. Make it clear this is not optional, it's a matter of honor."
"Hai, father."
"Also, mobilize our direct operatives. We're going to Tokyo to eliminate every Hand member in that building."
A third message arrived moments later, this time containing a hyperlink. Clicking it revealed a comprehensive database: names, photographs, known locations, and operational patterns of Hand members worldwide. The list seemed endless, scrolling for pages, and concluded with a critical note: Primary concentration of Hand forces currently in New York.
That final detail ignited a frenzy among American-based assassins.
Within the hour, a new phrase could be heard echoing through criminal underworld haunts across the United States: "Brothers, time to make some money."
New York became the focal point immediately. Assassins from Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles began mobilizing. Even local gangsters and independent contractors in Hell's Kitchen, who normally avoided the professional killer community, started calculating whether they had the skills to claim a few bounties.
The streets were about to run red.
Smith had deliberately excluded the Five Fingers from the bounty list. Alexandra, Madame Gao, Bakuto, Sowande, and Murakami had mastered K'un-Lun's chi techniques, they were effectively superhuman combatants. Ordinary assassins would be slaughtered wholesale if they attempted to engage those targets. Better to let the rank-and-file killers thin out the Hand's foot soldiers while the Fraternity's elite handled the leadership.