nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan Stark was pleased. The professor she had paid five million dollars to had come through for her. She now had an AI to operate the drones. The beautiful part about it was that the young Stark had written the code. It was perfect. If something went wrong Maggie could easily place the blame at the girl's doorstep.

Maragaret grabbed the hard drive and would personally deliver it to her lead on the project.

nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan was not happy. The piloted suits were ready, but there was a problem with the AI for the drones. Governments didn't want drones operated by remote control. The reaction time sucked. They wanted drones that could follow orders and think for themselves in the middle of combat.

Margaret put her best programmers on it for the past month and they hadn't gotten anywhere. She was at her limit of patience. If these drones weren't delivered soon Margaret would lose everything. Margaret played to win and there was no way in Hell she was going to lose. Not now.

She picked up the phone and called a contact. Five million should buy what she wanted.

nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan looked at the five prototypes. Three were drones and two were suits similar to the Iron Man suits. The information on the suits had been a real find and one that Margaret intended to exploit. Any country or organization would pay billions to get their hands on a few of those suits.

The hardware was done. The five prototypes had turned out better than expected. Tony was a genius and his inventions always turned out to be cash cows. These five inventions would make her a lot of cash. Enough that she could start her second takeover of Stark.

There were still some software issues to work out and to find test pilots of course.

Then a field test.

Maggie had the perfect field test in mind for when everything was ready.

nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan looked at the prototype with satisfaction. The first model was almost ready for field testing. The software was finally finished and the hardware was done as well. They just had to put the finishing touches n it and then see how it did in the field. That of course was the most important part. The government didn't want technology and weapons that didn't work.

"When will it be ready for a field test?" she asked the man standing next to her.

"In a week, Ms. Donovan," he replied. "We're ironing out the bugs and kinks. We should have them all fixed within a week."

"Excellent. You and your team have made amazing progress."

The man beamed under the praise. "We could have never done it without the information you provided."

"I know," she said matter of factly. "When this field test succeeds we will be ready to start taking contract bids."

"Ah yes," he replied. He didn't care for such matters. He left that to people like Ms. Donovan while he focused on the research and design.

"Thank you," she said before turning to leave.

nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan-Stark sat at the conference table and looked at the men across the table. The were weaklings and the perfect type for her to control. Kintotech was a small tech company with bad management and not much ambition by the men running the show. It was perfect for Margaret to take over and build up to something to be respected. She had the perfect way to do it too.

"So gentlemen is the deal agreeable to you or should I go somewhere else? I'm sure there are a dozen tech companies out there who could really benefit from the technology I have to offer."

The men looked at one another and then across the table at Margaret. She gave them a small smile. "Of course Ms. Stark. We would be fools to pass up such a deal."

Maggie gave them a bigger smile. "Gentlemen, this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan-Stark wasn't a stupid woman and she wasn't a fool. She knew that there were always people out to take her position, this time it was family who was after her position. Which was to be expected.

She had been watching the stocks closely and was concerned about this Scion company. They had been buying as much stock as possible and if for some reason they teamed up with her brother...well Margaret would be prepared. Contingency plans were always necessary when someone was trying to take you down.

It was time to initiate those contingency plans just in case. She always covered her ass and she always had a few plans for the future. She began the necessary file transfers.

nextgen_adult:

Margaret Donovan Stark sipped her glass of wine as she listened to the man, Senator Sloane, sitting across from her. “I trust the package was delivered and everything is in order?” she asked when she had enough of him babbling on.

“Yes it did. It arrived all intact and we had it set up in no time. You should come and see it. We’re just in….”

“I don’t want to know,” Maggie said. “Plausible deniability and all of that.”

Sloane nodded. “I understand. We do have two subjects ready for the field tests, but we will soon be acquiring more.”
Margaret nodded. “Please keep me informed how the tests go.”

Sloane smiled. “Of course. I understand wanting to see the fruits of….”

Margaret held up a hand to stop him. “It was the company not me.” She didn’t want her name associated with the project. The company being associated was fine. If information about the project ever got out, she could always say it had been developed before she took over Stark Inc. The blame and the fallout would be placed on her predecessor, not her.

Sloane smiled. “I understand.”

“Do you have reliable people running this project of yours?”

“Of course,” he assured her. “I have complete faith in the director. He’s most efficient and productive.” Despite a small setback, Ezra Kane has been a competent project director. Sloane hoped he continued to be so.

Margaret finished off the last of her glass of wine. “Good. It can be so hard to find reliable people.” Not to mention hard to get rid of others. She had been trying to get rid of Potts since day one and had been unsuccessful so far. The board loved the woman and would not let Margaret make a move against her. Maggie suspected the woman was leaking company information to Tony, which would come as no surprise. Loyalty such as Potts had for Maggie’s brother was hard to come by and buy.

“Thank you for lunch, Senator. I must get back. I have a company to run.”

“Maggie, it was my pleasure as always,” he said as he stood up.

“As mine,” Maggie said as she stood up. She shook Sloane’s hand. “Until next time.”

“Of course,” he said and watched her leave. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. “Start the field test.”

nextgen_adult:

As the head of a billion dollar international company, Margaret Donovan-Stark was a very busy woman. Her days consisted of meeting after meeting and dinner usually ended up being a dinner meeting. It took a lot of effort and energy to run Stark Inc., but Margaret was enjoying every second of it.

The weapons development and research was now running at full steam and had taken all of her focus and energy. Stark Inc was once again a major player in the weapons industry and the government contracts were coming in. Not to mention contracts from private security companies, many of which used to be competitors but were now customers. The contracts and money were coming in and the stock price was starting to rise again after the hit it took during the transition.

Despite her very busy schedule, she took time out when her scientists in research and development called her. She stepped out of the elevator and into the lab.

"Ah Ms. Stark, so glad you could come down here. We have made significant progress with our recent project," the chief scientist said as he fell into step along side of her. "If you would allow me to show you?”

“Excellent. Proceed.” she said. If this project panned out, the company would make billions in government contracts not only from the United States government, but from others like Great Britain and other friendly governments.

“The prototype for the unit is finished, however….”

“Is there a problem?” she asked.

“Oh no, ma’am. Just the opposite. There was an unexpected possibility and my team is currently researching ways to make it work. If this proves to be feasible, not only will we be able to do containment, we should be able to use the subject’s abilities to our own benefit.”

“Interesting,” she carefully said, not allowing him to see any reaction either way. “Keep me informed.” She started to walk toward the door.

“There is the matter of our research budget, ma’am,” he said as he walked after her.

Margaret paused. “You will have what you need.” The development money would be mere pennies compared to what this would bring in if the idea worked. She left the lab.

nextgen_adult:

Friends in high places are wonderful things.  It's even better when they owe you.

The men loyal to Tony Stark have mostly been weeded out over this last month.  Some quit.  Others went to "promotions" within shell companies.  Her Department of Defense friends have already offered potential contracts and as for designing them?  There's always some smart, ambitious kid that wants to make a name for themselves and enough to pay back their student loans.

Margaret Donovan-Stark is at a cocktail party tonight socializing and selling the Stark brand.  Many people here knew her father and brother.  She's selling the old Stark - one that knows and loves America, one that has the company in mind rather then a bunch of "citizen of the world" Avengers, and one that sure as hell doesn't marry Russian spies.  She has the added ability of being every man's fantasy in here - a woman that hunts, fishes, loves money more then shopping, goes to church just enough to claim the Christian label, and is a single former beauty queen.  She sips her wiskey on the rocks and looks out on New York - the town she's beginning to own.

anyastark:

Anya had spent the past week in S.H.I.E.L.D. medical sitting outside the isolation ward where her parents were. Mom was improving and the doctors said they were going to take her off the medication keeping her unconscious in the next day or so. Her healing factor, as slight as it was, was doing its job and she was significantly healed.

Dad was a completely different story. He was stable, but wasn't really making any progress. Anya spent every waking moment searching her father's private computers for information on the nanites inside of him. Unfortunately there were teraflops worth of data to go through and she wasn't any closer to finding the information she needed. It was essential to either upgrade the nanites inside of him and if she couldn't do that, she had to disable them so newer generation nanites could be introduced into his system. If both were active at the same time they could see the other as foreign invaders and destroy each other.

A week of searching and she wasn't any closer to helping her father. She slept when she absolutely couldn't stay awake any longer and she showered when her siblings forced her to take a break. Constant contact with Pepper and Uncle Rhodey was kept and they kept her abreast of what was going on with the company. They had managed to put out the fires and kept things running smoothly for the past week. Today was a board meeting to formally select an acting CEO until her father made a recovery. If he...Anya stopped herself from thinking that. Dad would get better and would be back to running the company again.

When Pepper called her this morning, Anya returned home, showered, put on a suit and headed into the company. Right now she was in Pepper's office and the two women were waiting for Rhodey to show before going into the board meeting. Anya stared at her laptop screen and kept searching through computer files.

nextgen_media:

New York, New York An explosion rocked the usual festive atmosphere of Coney Island today as a car bomb exploded. Caught in the blast was billionaire Tony Stark and his wife Natasha Romanova. The couple had been out and enjoying the afternoon at Coney Island, rumor has it that the location was the site of their first date many years ago, when Mr. Stark’s car exploded. Police and ambulance responded and New York’s famous couple were rushed to an undisclosed hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Stark suffered severe injuries and both are listed in critical condition. Investigation into the cause of the explosion is under underway. CONT ON PAGE 2.

New York, New York Could a new wave of anti-mutant sentiment be spreading through the city and country? An explosion rocked a homeless shelter in Tribeca today. The shelter was engulfed in flames and fire crews arrived on scene. Six people were caught in the blast and are believed to have been volunteers and staff. The cause of the explosion is under investigation, but authorities believe that it may be related to anti-mutant sentiment. The shelter was a popular one with the city’s homeless mutant population. Similar occurrences happened at shelters that are popular with the mutant population in cities such as Miami, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, and San Francisco. CONT ON PAGE 3

New York, New York It seems like New York’s pranksters are at it again. This time the dastardly culprit showed up at an event of Rooftop Films and started throwing crème pies at the attendees. The culprit was dressed in a black outfit, wore a mask and a wide-brimmed hat when he pulled off this caper. During his lobbing of delicious desserts, he culprit was reciting poetry. The exact poem was unidentified along with the identity of the prankster. He disappeared into thin air when he was done. Police would like to talk to anyone who has any information to the identity or whereabouts of this person.