Legacy update is live.
Settle in.
The workshop is awake.
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Pepper didn’t shout when she entered the lab.
That was worse.
She came down the stairs with her coat still wet from the rain, stopped at the workbench where Chrysalis lay disassembled, and examined every scorched panel.
Then she looked at the bandage on Morgan’s shoulder, Leo’s wrapped hand, and the purple bruise on Maya’s arm.
“I want a medical report on all three of you before anything else,” she said.
“We’re fine,” Morgan replied.
“That stopped being a valid answer when you went through a roof using untested thrusters.”
Maya opened her mouth, maybe to defend the calibration, but decided this wasn’t the time.
Pepper listened to the whole explanation without interrupting: the pendant, what T.O.N.Y.
was, the H.I.V.E.
attack, Project Icarus, the Maine factory, Elias Voss, and Roxxon’s arrival.
When the damaged projection appeared, her expression changed.
“Hi, Pep,” T.O.N.Y.
said, his image incomplete and unstable.
“I need to start by making it clear that I’m not…”
“I know what you are,” Pepper cut in.
The interface fell silent.
She moved close enough to see the static running across the simulated image of her husband’s face.
“Did Tony leave any instructions about you?”
“Just restrictions.
I’m not allowed to claim I’m the original person, take control of weapons without human consent, or give Morgan access to classified projects unless specific criteria are met.”
“At least he learned something.”
The words were harsh, but her voice broke on the last one.
Morgan took a step toward her mother.
“There’s a backup in New Jersey.
We can save him.”
Pepper regained her composure.
“First, you’re going to the meeting at MIT.
My legal team will be there.
Then we’ll decide what happens to this system and the armor.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“You and me.
As mother and daughter.
Not two companies negotiating ownership.”
Morgan wanted to argue.
Instead, she nodded.
She’d promised to stop hiding things.
Pepper unfolded a chair and sat down in front of the three of them.
“Who made each part?”
Morgan started with the pendant’s controller.
Her mother cut her off with a gesture toward the workbench.
“I didn’t ask where the Stark name came from.”
Maya described the mounts, the thrust modules, and the balance adjustments.
Leo showed her the carbon sample left in the box.
When Morgan explained how she’d separated the muscle signals, she realized she was speaking more slowly than when she’d described the fight.
She needed to distinguish what she’d created from what she’d simply found already built.
Pepper noted the failures too.
When they were done, she asked all three to keep copies of their own notebooks.
“Tomorrow, they’ll try to make this all about the incident.
Don’t let the work you did before it get lost in that.”
Maya set the box near the chair, away from the Stark workbench.
Morgan resisted the urge to promise that her mother would fix everything.
The next morning, the hallway outside the president’s office seemed too quiet for a university building.
Two MIT security guards watched the entrance.
Four other men with no visible identification stood near the elevators.
Morgan recognized the cut of their suits and the way they watched people’s hands.
Roxxon.
Pepper hadn’t arrived yet.
A remote meeting with the Stark Industries board had held her up at an office near campus, but her lawyers were waiting in the next room.
The president, though, had insisted that the initial discussion would be “academic.”
“Academic, with armed agents in the hallway,” Maya muttered.
“An interdisciplinary environment,” Leo replied without humor.
Morgan touched the pendant beneath her shirt.
T.O.N.Y.
was shut down to preserve the matrix.
For the first time since her birthday, she would walk into a hostile room without his voice.
A class of students went down the hallway carrying drawing boards.
One young woman recognized Morgan and slowed down, but a classmate who didn’t want to be late pulled her along.
The classroom door closed behind them.
Leo checked the time.
“That was our class.”
Morgan didn’t know what to say.
Over the past few nights, MIT had become a collection of floor plans, entrances, and cameras.
For a few minutes, she’d forgotten it was still the place she’d wanted to go for years.
Maya adjusted her backpack strap with her good arm and waited beside them.
No one needed to say they were going in together.
The president’s office had wood-paneled walls, old diplomas, and windows facing the courtyard where the attack had taken place.
President Harrison was behind his desk.
Beside him, the campus security director and two attorneys for MIT leafed through reports.
Four people in front of the windows wore red Roxxon pins.
The woman in the center stood.
“Victoria Vance, vice president of legal affairs and risk containment.
Thank you for coming.”
“Doesn’t seem like we had a choice,” Maya said.
Vance smiled without warmth.
“We all have choices.
Some simply cost more.”
Morgan, Maya, and Leo sat down.
A Stark Industries lawyer tried to come in, but the president asked for five minutes to establish the facts before anyone from outside joined the discussion.
Morgan saw the maneuver: without Pepper’s team in the room, Vance could turn questions into statements.
Her first impulse was to get up and leave.
Instead, she noted who avoided eye contact, who already had documents prepared, and which questions were printed out in front of the president.
Tony used to command a room with speed.
Pepper did it with patience.
Morgan tried to learn from both without imitating either.
“We agree to five minutes,” she said.
“Provided the meeting is recorded and no one signs off on a decision before our representatives join us.”
Harrison hesitated, but switched on the university’s recorder.
“The attack on campus was carried out by devices linked to a former Roxxon contractor,” Harrison began.
“The university is cooperating with federal authorities and working to determine how unregistered technology was used during the incident.”
“Technology that saved lives,” Leo said.
“That will also be taken into account.”
Vance turned on a tablet.
Images of the courtyard appeared: the makeshift coil, Morgan’s glasses, the electromagnetic pulse.
“MIT has clear rules governing inventions developed in its laboratories,” she said.
“As a funder of certain facilities, Roxxon has the right to evaluate security technology developed there.”
“Evaluation isn’t ownership,” Morgan replied.
“I agree.
But we need to know whether the device used in the attack was developed with MIT resources, whether it incorporates technology patented by Stark Industries, and whether it poses a risk to the community.”
Maya leaned forward.
“The generator was assembled using a maintenance battery, an actuator from my project, and a sample of Leo’s polymer.
The campus was under attack.
We took it apart afterward.”
“And the holographic interface?” Vance asked.
“Was that improvised too?”
Morgan held her gaze.
“Personal technology.”
“Based on Anthony Stark’s intellectual property.”
“Property managed by the Stark family and the company, not Roxxon.”
Vance swiped to another image.
Chrysalis’s silhouette appeared above the roof.
“And this?”
“It didn’t start at MIT.
We made contributions to it there.”
“But it incorporates components created on campus by two students.
The university is legally responsible for any resulting risks.”
President Harrison stepped in.
“Morgan, we need you to turn over the technical records for an independent review.”
“To whom?”
He looked at Vance before answering.
“A joint committee.”
“Controlled by the company that funded the swarm’s creator,” Morgan said.
The silence confirmed more than an answer would have.
Vance folded her hands.
“Elias Voss acted outside the scope of his contract.
Roxxon was a victim of the misuse of its facilities.
We detained him in Maine and are cooperating with the authorities.”
“Then why did your trucks take the servers before the police arrived?” Leo asked.
For the first time, Vance’s smile faded a little.
“Information obtained through unauthorized access should not be used in this meeting.”
“The footage was from a public road,” Morgan said.
“And it showed your agents taking O.B.I.S.’s core.”
One of the Roxxon men discreetly touched the communicator on his lapel.
T.O.N.Y.
remained shut down, but Morgan didn’t need him to notice that something had changed.
The agents in the hallway began repositioning themselves.
Vance pushed three documents across the desk.
“The university is proposing an interim solution: suspension of your laboratory activities, voluntary surrender of the equipment involved, and a confidentiality agreement for the duration of the investigation.
In exchange, there will be no immediate expulsion or criminal referral for unauthorized access to university systems.”
Maya read the first page.
“This transfers our research to a Roxxon holding company.”
“It transfers temporary custody.”
“With no deadline for returning it,” Leo said.
He turned the page and checked the inventory number against his own notebook.
“They’ve included samples of mine that weren’t even in the courtyard.”
Vance replied that the entire set needed to be examined to determine the extent of the risk.
“Then specify which samples pose a risk,” Maya said.
“Not ‘all related research.’ That could mean anything we do afterward.”
Harrison reached for the page to check it.
Vance kept it pinned under one finger for a moment before letting him read.
Morgan saw the gesture and stopped searching for a brilliant answer.
Her friends’ questions were creating an opening that no declaration about her last name could have.
Morgan closed the document.
“We’re not signing.”
Harrison went pale.
“You need to consider the academic consequences.”
“I’m considering the consequences of handing an orbital defense system to the people who helped wake it up.”
Vance rested her hands on the desk.
“Ms.
Stark, your last name does not put you above this institution’s rules.”
“I agree.
Roxxon isn’t above them, either.”
The door opened.
An MIT security guard stepped in and spoke quietly into the president’s ear.
Harrison frowned.
“Have my lawyers arrived?” Morgan asked.
“Not exactly.”
Firm footsteps echoed down the hallway.
There was no hurry, only the certainty that no one would stop them.
Victoria Vance looked toward the entrance.
The double doors opened.
Pepper Potts walked in with two lawyers from her team and a slim folder under her arm.
Her eyes swept over Morgan, checked the bandage beneath her clothes, then settled on Vance.
“I apologize for the delay,” she said.
“Roxxon turned an academic meeting into an attempt to misappropriate intellectual property.
That meant a little more paperwork.”
She set the folder on top of Vance’s documents.
“Now we can start the real conversation.”
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