"Who's behind me?" The demon Meghan scoffed from inside the silver flask. "You really wouldn't want to know who's behind me, Sorcerer. I can only tell you... I serve Azazel."
The demon paused, her voice dripping with venom. "As for the grand design? Do you honestly think a low-level scout like me would be allowed to know the endgame?"
After saying this, the flask fell dead silent.
John placed the bottle on the hardwood floor with a solemn expression. He could tell Meghan had revealed everything she actually knew. Though he didn't know why, she had seemed strangely resistant to this trip to the mortal plane. John hadn't even deployed his truly agonizing interrogation methods yet, but the entity had already cooperatively spilled her superior's name.
However, since she no longer possessed any tactical value, John Constantine had absolutely no intention of keeping her on Earth a second longer.
He pulled a piece of chalk from his coat and began to quickly draw a banishment circle on the floor, placing the flask directly in the center. A soul-stirring, blood-red glow began to rise from the chalk lines.
At the final moment before sending her back to the pit, John asked his final question.
"You don't seem to like coming to Earth very much," John noted, lighting a fresh Silk Cut. "That's a bit different from the wankers I usually summon."
"Earth?" Meghan spat. "Aside from those meathead idiots working under Mephisto, what demon would actually like coming here? Not only do we have to constantly dodge those sanctimonious sorcerers from Kamar-Taj, but we also have to watch our backs for that damned Ghost Rider!"
Inside the bottle, Meghan could already smell the familiar, suffocating scent of hellfire and sulfur. She answered John's inquiry without the slightest hesitation. Compared to being trapped in a bottle of holy water by this trench-coated bastard, she vastly preferred the torment of Hell.
However, as the spell reached its climax, she had one final question.
"Your name, Sorcerer," the demon demanded. "I'm about to go back. Can you answer this one question for me? The next time I crawl my way back to Earth... I'll come find you so we can catch up."
The red light in the circle reached critical mass. The suffocating smell of Hell's sulfur filled the entire foyer.
Hearing Meghan's lethal promise, the corners of John Constantine's mouth curled up into a wicked smirk.
"Tony Stark!" John declared confidently. "Remember to come find me. I'm very famous..."
With a blinding flash of red light, the chalk circle on the ground burned to ash. At the exact same moment, the silver flask in the center disappeared entirely, transported directly to the underworld.
John chuckled to himself. That flask was still half-full of potent Holy Water. Whichever demon opened it down there was going to get a very nasty, flesh-melting surprise.
"Hey! John!" Wade yelled, throwing his arms up in the air. "You could have given them my name! I really hope that one day... the legendary name of Lord Deadpool will resound throughout the circles of Hell!"
The two walked out of the villa together, with Wade still obsessing over the missed marketing opportunity.
Meanwhile, John stopped on the cobblestone path and casually glanced back at the mansion—specifically at a large, illuminated window on the upper floor.
Grace was leaning her elbows on the windowsill. The terrified mother from earlier was gone. She was looking down at him with eyes full of undeniable, sultry invitation.
"You might need to take a cab back to the city alone, Wade," John said, tossing his cigarette onto the grass and crushing it beneath his heel.
John turned around and walked purposefully back toward the front doors of the villa.
"Wait, what? Hey!" Wade yelled, left standing alone in the dark driveway in a complete daze. "Son of a bitch!"
[Malibu - The Seaside Villa]
After leaving Hell's Kitchen, Tony Stark flew straight back to his seaside villa. With his last hope for a supernatural miracle completely shattered by Constantine, he was forced to face cold, clinical reality. He could now only follow the psychiatrists' advice.
He had to commit Rhodey.
Society is always incredibly accommodating for the wealthy. With just a single, discreet phone call, an unmarked medical transport vehicle from the New York State Psychiatric Research Institute arrived at the villa's private entrance.
Standing on the driveway, Tony watched in silence as the heavily sedated, unconscious Rhodes was strapped to a gurney and loaded into the back of the reinforced van. The profound sadness and guilt in Tony's eyes were beyond words.
As the sky darkened over the ocean, Tony Stark retreated to his basement laboratory.
However, this time, he did not pull up holographic schematics for repulsors or flight stabilizers. He was no longer obsessed with upgrading his armor.
Instead, glowing, three-dimensional models of the human brain filled the room. Tony began to frantically absorb every piece of academic literature on consciousness, neuroplasticity, and psychological restructuring.
Even though the world's leading experts had pronounced a death sentence on his best friend's sanity, Tony Stark had absolutely no intention of giving up on him.
Time passed, drip by agonizing drip. In the blink of an eye, several months had gone by.
Tony's obsessive neurological research had yielded no viable results. But on the other side of the country, a dark conspiracy was once again unfurling its tendrils toward him.
[The Bronx, New York - An Undisclosed Safehouse]
"Mmh... so, let me get this straight."
The Joker circled a heavy wooden workbench. "Your grand idea is to walk right up to him... and then use your... emmm... your little glowing whips to give him a thrashing? No, no, no. That's not good. Not good at all."
Inside the dilapidated house, the long-disappeared Clown Prince of Crime was back. However, this time, he was not operating alone.
Sitting in the corner of the dim room was a heavily tattooed, reticent Russian man with a deeply weathered face. He was completely preoccupied with gently teasing the white cockatoo perched on his broad shoulder, showing absolutely no reaction to the Joker's theatrical critiques.
"You want to kill Tony Stark?" the Joker asked, swaying his body dramatically as he picked up the two heavy, metallic whip handles resting on the table. Without the palladium reactor equipped, the heavy cables looked completely unremarkable. "With these?"
Hearing the painted maniac mock his life's work, Ivan Vanko finally stopped playing with his bird. He stood up, his massive frame casting a long shadow.
"You have no idea what this means," Vanko said, his voice a thick, rumbling Russian bass.
Vanko paced over to the table, looking down at the equipment with a fiercely complex expression. Among the wires and metal, a crude but functional Arc Reactor pulsed with a dazzling white light.
It was because of that exact technology that his father, Anton Vanko, had died in poverty and disgrace in Siberia. Ivan's purpose in coming to America was never just to assassinate Tony Stark. His true goal was the absolute annihilation of the Stark legacy.
He wanted to bleed Tony in front of the world. He wanted to prove that the great Howard Stark and his golden-boy son were nothing but a family of disgraceful thieves. As long as he stood before the public wielding an Arc Reactor he had built with his own two hands, the myth of Stark Industries' untouchable genius would be ruined.
He just had absolutely no intention of explaining his family drama to a clown.
"I am grateful to you for bringing me from the cold of Moscow to New York," Vanko said in a deep, dangerous voice, gently stroking the glowing reactor core. "But that does not mean I will willingly be used as your attack dog."
Vanko had his own vendetta. He had no interest in playing house with a psychopath.
"I know you are full of hatred for the Stark family, Ivan," the Joker soothed, his voice dropping into a soft, surprisingly empathetic register. He patted Vanko's massive shoulder. "And I have absolutely no intention of stopping you from getting your revenge. But!"
The Joker's eyes widened, a manic, terrifying glee flashing across his scarred face.
"I have a better idea! I've built a much, much bigger stage for you!"
Facing Vanko's stoic defiance, the Joker wasn't angry in the slightest. The entire master plan was already perfectly constructed inside his twisted mind, and this vengeful Russian physicist was the core mechanism.
Simply killing Tony Stark held no interest for the Joker. Death was boring.
What the Joker truly wanted to see was the invincible Iron Man slowly drowning in the whirlpool of human nature. He wanted to watch Tony's sanity fracture piece by piece.
'Tony Stark,' the Joker thought, a wicked smile stretching his painted scars. 'Reputation. Friendship. Love. When I put them all to the fire... how will you choose?'
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