Chapter 5: The Iron Monger Pays a Visit
"Obadiah Stane?"
Matthew's expression shifted slightly at the name.
Eleanor recognized the look immediately. Her employer had not retained a single detail of the appointment she had mentioned a week ago. She stepped close and lowered her voice.
"Obadiah Stane. He's on the board of Stark Industries." A pause. "I did mention the appointment briefly about a week ago, sir, but I understand you were occupied with training at the time."
She produced a file and held it out.
The first thing that came off the page was the head, smooth, bald, catching light like a polished surface, paired with a thick, dense beard below it. Before he had even finished reading the name, Matthew knew exactly who this was.
The Iron Monger. The final villain from Iron Man 1.
What was he doing here? And how had he gotten himself connected to Umbrella?
Matthew had questions he could not yet answer. He set them aside. The man was already in the building, which meant the conversation was happening regardless.
He washed up, changed into a clean suit, and took the elevator to the conference room on the top floor.
Obadiah Stane was exactly where he expected to find him — settled into the sofa with the easy comfort of a man who treated every room he sat in as his own. An iced whiskey in one hand, a half-finished cigar in the other, eyes moving steadily around the space. The decor had been done in a style that suggested medieval English aristocracy rather than a corporate office, and Stane appeared to find this interesting.
He drew a slow breath from the cigar.
Then he checked his watch.
Five minutes past the agreed time.
"Hmm." He glanced over at Eleanor, who stood at a professional distance with the composed stillness of someone paid to be composed. A smoke ring drifted from his lips. "Looks like your new director has a relaxed relationship with punctuality."
Eleanor's eyes moved slightly. She started to say something.
The door opened.
"My sincere apologies." Matthew stepped in wearing a dark gray suit, tone easy and entirely unruffled. "When I heard the Obadiah Stane of Stark Industries wanted to meet with me, I started getting ready at eight this morning and still only just finished. I hope you haven't been waiting long, Mr. Stane."
Stane looked at him for a moment.
He did not believe a word of it. He also had no intention of making a scene on someone else's ground.
He ground out the cigar, stood, and walked over with a smile that sat somewhere between genuine and professionally constructed.
"My friend." His hand came out. "Of course I don't blame you."
They shook. When Stane leaned in, he caught something faint in Matthew's hair — the particular, unmistakable trace of spent gunpowder.
"The new head of Umbrella's security division." There was something lightly amused in his voice. "Mr. Lawrence, is that your cologne? There's a very distinctive edge to it."
"You like it? I can have a bottle sent over."
"Ha!" Stane waved the offer off. "I'll pass. I've always been more of a 4711 man myself."
"A real shame." Matthew shook his head without conviction, released the handshake, and crossed to the chair at the head of the table. He sat down and got straight to it. "Mr. Stane, you had someone book my entire afternoon a week in advance. I doubt you came all this way to make small talk. Say what you came to say, we're both busy."
Eleanor, without being asked, stepped out and pulled the door firmly shut behind her.
The conference room held two people and a faint haze of cigar smoke.
Stane settled back into the sofa. He produced another cigar from his jacket, trimmed it, lit it with the unhurried precision of someone who treated the ritual as a statement, and took a long draw before he spoke again.
"Since you want to be direct — fine." He let the smoke go slowly. "January of next year. Afghanistan. I need to hire a team from your company to eliminate a convoy. Clean work. No survivors."
His eyes carried something harder in them for a moment.
"For context, I discussed this with your father, Theodore Lawrence, about three months ago. We hadn't finalized the arrangement when he passed. That's why I'm here today. To close it."
He named the figure: twenty-eight million dollars in total. Twelve million upfront, remainder on completion.
"Can you tell me who the target is?" Matthew looked at him steadily. "Or which organization the convoy belongs to. Who's in it."
He already knew the answer. He had known from the moment Stane said Afghanistan and January. But the professional thing to do was ask, and the interesting thing to do was see whether Stane would put it on the table or keep dancing around it.
Stane straightened slightly against the sofa cushions.
"That information isn't relevant to the job," he said. "The target is a personal matter. Someone I have history with. Nothing more complicated than that."
"A personal matter." Matthew waved a thread of smoke away from his face and allowed himself a small, unhurried smile. "The kind of personal matter that requires Obadiah Stane to hire a paramilitary team and specify no survivors. Interesting definition of ordinary."
He let that settle, then continued.
"If you'd rather not disclose the target, I understand completely. We just won't be able to do business on this one."
Stane took a slow sip of the whiskey.
"What a shame. I thought we were going to have a very productive working relationship."
"Rules are rules."
"I recall that the rules your company operated under previously didn't involve asking clients to justify their targets."
"Those were the previous rules." Matthew's expression didn't change. "I'm in charge now. Some things will be different going forward."
Stane looked at him for a moment. Then he smiled, the same smooth, professionally assembled smile as before, and let it go.
He had not expected to be turned down this cleanly, or this pleasantly. He filed the observation away.
The conversation continued for another half hour across less specific territory, the kind of surface-level talk two people have when the actual agenda has already been settled in either direction. Stane finished his cigar, stood, exchanged a final handshake, and left.
Matthew opened the ventilation system the moment the door closed. The conference room aired out slowly, the thin haze dispersing.
He stood at the window. Below, Manhattan moved at its usual pace — dense, purposeful, relentless. And scattered among the crowds on the sidewalks below, half-visible between the foot traffic, were the people who had nowhere to be and nowhere to go.
He looked at the room behind him, at the expense of it, and looked back down at the street.
"Seems the people here are still living in pretty rough conditions," he said, to no one in particular.
"Been here over half a month. About time I started doing something about that."
He would absolutely not be mentioning that System points were involved.