Avengers: Vengeance

Doom

"The rebels have taken it, your excellency," the guard muttered as he knelt before his master in the throne room. Fear seized him, for this mishap was his and his team's responsibility entirely.

Doom leaned forward on his throne and his emotionless eyes peered at the kneeling officer. Silence gripped the room and there was only the sound of burning torches along the walls.

"I know that I failed, your excellency. But the man was so fast. He caught me and my men unaware..."

"Tell me who this man is," Doom softly commanded. There was no weight to his voice. He didn't need to bark; his words alone were enough to strike fear in the hearts of his people.

"I don't know the name," the man fumbled. "Only that he wore a dark red suit. With devil horns."

Doom leaned back and smiled beneath the mask. "The Daredevil. Bold of him to infiltrate Castle Doom. He truly is the Man Without Fear."

"Sire, I..."

"Your time on this planet is done," Doom said, waving dismissive a hand.

Before true panic could snare him, a pair of hands reached out behind him, captured his head in them and twisted. The man let out a startled gasp that yielded to the cracking of his neck and he fell to the stone floor in a lifeless heap.

"Go summon your sister and wait for your instructions," Doom ordered the figure before standing and walking through the door just beyond his throne. He descended the steps and entered a large laboratory.

"Your excellency," a technician said as she bowed before him. "How may I be of assistance to you?"

Doom kept walking, barely acknowledging the woman. "I need them woken up. I have a mission that requires their skills."

"Of course," the technician sputtered before turning to her team. "Bring them out of stasis!"

Doom watched as the tubes rose up from panels in the floor and were then drained of fluid. The figures inside awakened and stared at him through the thick glass.

He cleared his throat and addressed them. "Longing...rusted...furnace...daybreak...seventeen...benign...nine, homecoming...one...freight car."

The tubes opened when he waved a hand and the the figures stepped forward. In unison they said "ready to comply."

Matt Murdock was running for his life. As his boots splashed in the puddles of the back alleys of Doomstadt, he almost chuckled at the notion of him running away in fear. They used to call him The Man Without Fear.

That was a long time ago, he reflected as he reached a dead end and quickly leaped up to the wall and kicked off in a display of immense athleticism. He reached an arm up, the baton gripped tight in his hand. He pressed the button on its smooth surface and the upper portion of the weapon shot upward and wrapped around a small statue of Victor Von Doom- the dictator who ruled all of Europe and Asia.

We don't call them that anymore though, he reminded himself. When Doom expanded Latveria's borders, he'd taken those names away. Now the vast expanse of land was known only as the Doom Empire.

The baton retracted, carrying him rapidly up the side of the building to its roof. Beneath him, the sounds of his pursuers' footfalls could be heard.

Almost there.

He tended up as he scaled the building and landed roughly on its rough, his senses on red alert. Three of them were on the ground below him; he could tell from the distinct sounds of their footsteps. And on the roof was...