"The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.

Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us.

But we do not ask for their love; only for their fear."

- Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS

media:

"That's Sabotage" 

by Glenn Miller and Marion Hutton

London, England; July 23, 1941

Night had long since fallen, but the soldiers remained awake discussing the more delicate topics they had deigned not to bring up during pleasant dinner conversation. Lori had offered to patch up the various cuts and scrapes Clint and Farley had acquired from their short run-in with German artillery. Both had insisted they were fine, but Lori's face was too eager to resist. Tony believed that she also wanted to hear the stories her brother and his friends had become entangled in as well.

"Did you face off with the German tanks? What are they called again?"

"Panzers," Tony added, and Lori gave him an absent nod before turning back to Farley. Her fingertip was smeared with an ointment that she daubed on the minor cuts peppering Farley's side; his face reddened by the minute from the special attention he was receiving. Tony watched the scene unfold with confidence. A dame had never ignored him for long, and Lori wouldn't be an exception.

"Not us, that's for sure. They have whole divisions for that sort of thing. Besides, who wants to be in a tank in an African summer? I've heard the things are pressure cookers – before you know it you're getting scalded through your boots and you'll be dead before the Krauts even attack you!" an earnest British soldier chimed in, steepling his fingers and resting his chin on his hands.

"It sounds just awful!" Lori exclaimed, giving Farley a brilliant smile that turned the kid's face to a ruddy eggplant. "I don't know how you manage it."

"Well, um..." Farley stammered for a response, turning to Tony with a gesture for help.

"What Farley means to say is, we don't mind that sort of thing. It's the life of a soldier, and we've seen far worse already." Tony winked at Farley, who sagged in his seat with relief and flashed him a thumbs-up.

Lori turned to Clint next, who looked slightly embarrassed as he rolled up his shirt. "What could possibly be worse than boiling in a can?"

"Well, Steve and I here escaped from a zeppelin that was shot down by a German submarine." Shrugging his shoulders as if it were no big deal, Tony sat back in his seat as Lori and the British soldiers gawked at him.

"You're pullin' my leg!" the stout soldier cried, and Tony shook his head triumphantly.

"It's the truth, I tell you! We were flying about over the Atlantic, minding our own business, when a U-boat emerges from the seas and starts firing with all she's got! It was lucky for us there was a spare glider handy, and we escaped to be rescued by these sailors here."

All of the soldiers were engaged in Tony's tale, leaning over the tablecloth to get a better view of the storyteller. Lori paused her task of bandaging to give Tony her full attention, and the British soldiers' faces concealed their thinly veiled impatience as he paused.

"The glider would only get us so far because the zeppelin wasn't incredibly high in the air to begin with, seeing as it was ripped to shreds with German fire and burning to a crisp. There was no hope of reaching the coast, but Steve and I weren't about to die at the hands of those beasts. As the glider crashed into the waves, we made our peace with our short and feeble lives."

"Correction – I think he made peace with his life." Steve jabbed a finger towards Tony, who rolled his eyes and continued.

"Whatever you say, meatlug. Anyways, all seemed lost until Seaman Barton fell from the sky like an angel to save our meager souls," Tony spread his hands and Clint scoffed, waving him off.

"Oh, sure."

"Steve and I were dragged from the seas by a few noble, brave sailors, and that's how we got here today," Tony finished with a flourish, grinning at Lori as he did so. The British soldiers applauded, Clint buried his face in his hands and Farley's jaw practically fell to his knees. This was how Tony was used to dinnertime discussions, with anyone from a group of strangers at a bar to government officials. He commanded the spotlight.

The British soldiers sat riveted to their seats, waiting with bated breath as Tony quirked an eyebrow. He nodded with satisfaction at their incredulous responses. Even Steve, who had witnessed the entire incident himself, looked impressed with Tony's retelling of the adventure. This was Tony's strong suit: he could make them believe anything, even if the truth deviated ever so slightly. Well, maybe a little more than slightly. It made for quite the story, evidenced by the intense expressions fixed on the faces of his audiences.

"It's remarkable! To survive such an ordeal... Simply incredible!" Lori gushed, her eyes sparkling as she turned away from Clint to face Tony. So this was his way in for the girl – war stories. Farley looked a little sour that Lori had looked away from him, but Clint only raised his eyebrows in an expression of humorous suspicion.

"And of all the places to get stuck on, we're stuck on the Reuben James," Tony began, and Sabin waved his arms in a gesture to silence him.

"Oh, don't you start dissing my ship!" he cried, and Clint followed suit.

"I've scrubbed every inch of that thing!"

Tony rolled his eyes at this and Lori simpered, the final key filling into the puzzle. Who would take a deck swabber over a rugged adventurer? Lori certainly wouldn't, and Tony knew this all too well.

And just like that, his record still remained perfect.

Night had long since fallen on London, and Tony could see the edging of a brilliant dawn peeking over the buildings of the city streets. The bustle of the air raid and the frenzy that had crammed the streets fell silent as Tony wandered. The streets were only frequented by a few staggering drunks, mostly soldiers and a few civilians. Darker sides of souls burned in the shades of the falling moon. This was when the soldiers broke – this was when Tony saw fear in their eyes.

Tony shook his head with a low laugh. He might follow the example of the soldiers and get a drink if he kept thinking poetic hogwash like this.

London was familiar, of course, but he had never seen it in such a personal light. The soldiers crouching over their Scotch, Lori's twinkling eyes and her twisted fascination for war stories. When Tony had been forced to tag along with Howard on business trips he had dragged his feet through Parliament and the country homes of fat businessmen. The city was raw and bleeding, a sort of cutting-edge madness and excitement pumping through the veins of those who lived to see another day.

A burst of mellow jazz music sounded from a nearby bar, and Tony lingered by the door with a group of young soldiers debating if they should go in and try their first drink of liquor. British, obviously underage, the kids vacillated between confident swaggers towards the door and falling back to their friends with a laugh and a weak joke. Tony broke the tension by stepping in, ducking under the low-hanging doorframe that would probably hit the supersoldier about mid-chest, and entered the dim lighting and smoky air of the bar.

A jazz quartet wailed a mournful tune in the corner, masking the lowered voices of the customers as they bent lower in their booths and rickety tables. The air smelled like cleaning fluid, dust and something sour, which matched the atmosphere in every other pub in the London area. Typically there was some kind of festivity going on during these times, but the rogue bombers had sobered the Londoners. Sobered wouldn't be the right word, though – many were cradling their mugs with the protectiveness of a parent.

Tony's contact sat in the corner of the pub. He was positioned strategically so he could see everyone enter and exit, their gestures, and where they kept their weapons if a fight broke out. A worn trench coat and a greasy newspaper disguised him in a mask of anonymity. If Tony hadn't been keeping an eye out for him, he would have hardly noticed the man holed up in the corner booth.

His feet stuck to the ground as he strode over, each footstep leaving a ripping noise behind as he pulled his shoe soles away from the tacky vinyl tiles. The man glanced upright, his hooded eyes displaying casual disinterest as Tony slid into the booth and glanced over his shoulder.

"Nasty what happened today," the man muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. Lukewarm, with the barest trace of steam rising from the yellowed mug. "I'm not all that interested in the war, to be honest. So long as we aren't in it, you know?"

The man's accent was American, but it was just another aspect of his disguise. Tony knew the man as George Dasch, a graduate of the German High Command school trained in espionage and specializing in sabotage. He didn't like the man per se, but his technical knowledge and position of relative freedom in the German command structure made him optimal for Tony's purposes.

"To business," Tony crossed his arms, making known to Dasch that he wasn't here to make small talk.

"A man of action – that I can appreciate. What have you brought forward to me today?" Folding his paper and placing it to the side, Dasch smiled and swept a hand through his well-greased hair. His smile was lopsided, offset by features that appeared to have been stretched by putty. Certainly no Aryan superman.

"I have information concerning the serum you have such interest in."

Dasch scoffed, tilting his head and twisting his lips in a wry expression. "It is not my interest, but the interest of... My people. We would hate to see the doctor's efforts wreak havoc on the innocent."

Waving these comments aside, Tony leaned forward until his chest pressed against the table. "I do not have a working formula. Neither does your science division, I believe?"

This was a bit of information Tony was sure Dasch didn't know he had, but the man's face remained as impassive as always. "No, we haven't. The last one had some... Side effects."

Tony knit his eyebrows, surprised at this turn of events. "He would take an incomplete prototype? Is he suicidal?"

"Schmidt is a fool. But this is not why we have met, is it?" Dasch drummed his fingertips against the table in rhythm with the quartet, dark eyes staring into Tony's. They were devoid of any warmth, soulless pits with sparks of intelligence behind them. Tony squirmed in his seat, uncomfortable under such an intense stare, but he forced himself to maintain his composure. He would not be intimidated by anyone, not even a man of Dasch's caliber.

"I may have headway on the serum. Reproduced in its complete form, you could have a division of these enhanced individuals."

"Tell me something I do not know, young Stark, or I am afraid our business transaction will no longer be mutually efficient," Dasch growled, and a flutter of panic leaped in Tony's chest. Without the Germans he would be out of options. America wouldn't listen, Italy was out of the question, Russia was, well, Russia, and the British were too busy in North Africa to bother with him. He needed this deal to work out.

Flattening his palms on the table, Tony met Dasch's calculating stare and glowered at him. "I know why the serum didn't work with Schmidt. The old fool of a doctor told Rogers something before he died – the serum makes good become great, and the bad become worse. It alters the chemical structure of the brain, exemplifying the best and the worst of an individual. That's why Schmidt is a madman and Rogers is shooting planes down from the sky during an air raid."

Dasch sniffed, smearing a drop of coffee on the side of his mug with disinterest. "How do I know you are not lying to me? Trying to save your own skin?"

Rage prickled beneath Tony's skin, and he felt the package in his coat burn against his chest. Dasch knew he was desperate, but nobody played Tony Stark and got away with it. "Rogers told me on the ship. He knows more about it than anyone we can find nearby. He practically regurgitated the entire case to me when I asked him about it."

The German leaned back in the booth, eyes flickering towards the pub's entrance as the group of soldiers finally stumbled through the doors with hushed whispers and boyish laughter. "This is a development for our side of the matter. How ridiculously sentimental. You've done well this time, Stark."

Tony should have been gratified, but Dasch's smirking sneer brought him no encouragement. "Sir, if I could perhaps present something to you...The plans I've been working on, the ones I brought forward a while ago..."

In response Dasch stood in one fluid motion, brushing a hand down the front of his coat and smoothing back his oily hair. "It was a pleasure doing business with you, kid. Pick up the bill, will you?"

Without a handshake in farewell Dasch stalked off, leaving Tony cursing his luck. He fished his wallet out from his pocket, dropping a few coins beside the half-empty cup of coffee, and pulled out the small parcel from his inside coat pocket.

The paper packaging was wrinkled and warped from water damage, but Tony knew the designs inside were intact. He had each paper memorized to a stray pencil mark – the blueprints were his pride and joy. Maybe Howard had been right. Forget super soldiers, this could cause a lasting change to the war. The technology was beyond its time, but Tony knew he would be able to construct it easily.

He had kept his magnum opus away from Howard, because he knew exactly what would happen to it. His father would bluster about its worth, and how Tony was disregarding the war effort and a thousand other excuses to whip up as he driveled on, then he would snatch the plans away and lock them up in a secure location where they would never see the light of day again.

Nazi, Fascists, British, American – what did it all matter? So long as Tony's work was put to good use, he would be satisfied. It didn't matter where or when. He wanted to know his work was valued, and right now his only inroads to that sort of closure were through Dasch.

Placing the parcel back in his pocket, Tony stood and wandered back into the cool London night. The streets were suddenly much more forbidding than they had been before. The night sky lightened as a chilling reality settled over Tony, blanketing his mind with disgust and anger.

For the first time in his life, Tony Stark was useless.

What do you think this magnum opus is? Thanks for your support and reviews! :)