Chapter 243: Tony and Pepper's Wedding
The next day.
With the crisis in the zombie universe resolved, Matthew treated himself to a rare few days off.
Whether it was just bad timing or not.
Matthew had just settled in for some proper downtime, lying around at home, when Tony and Pepper showed up together at his door with a wedding invitation.
That's right. They were getting married.
It was an extremely rushed wedding.
The whole thing felt like a spur-of-the-moment decision, thrown together in a hurry.
Fortunately, rushed or not, a wedding thrown by someone at Tony Stark's level of wealth was never going to be anything less than extravagant.
Matthew, though, was the one who really suffered for it.
He'd only just started his hard-won few days off, hadn't even gotten to rest properly, and now he had to run off to Tony and Pepper's wedding.
That said, Matthew was genuinely happy for the two of them.
As the saying goes, may all lovers find their way to each other.
He wanted nothing but happiness for Tony and the rest of them.
And of course, when a good friend gets married, a wedding gift is only right.
The "gift" itself was simple enough. Matthew just handed over an Umbrella Corporation physical enhancement package.
Whenever the two of them wanted, they could stop by Umbrella and pick up a full course of enhancement serum.
A few days later, on some secluded island.
The wedding venue had been decked out with lavish extravagance.
Maybe it was because so many guests were coming, or maybe Tony just wanted to flaunt his wealth, but he'd bought out an entire private island for the occasion, with white roses flown in and scattered from the dock all the way to the main venue.
The petals glowed gold in the light of the setting sun.
Every gust of sea breeze sent them drifting, like the whole island was caught in an endless shower of petals.
At the reception, a towering champagne tower stood nine tiers high.
The drink glowed amber in the sunset light.
Not far from the reception, a band in formal dress played some unnamed classical piece, the music blending with the sound of the waves in a way that didn't feel out of place at all.
In the distance, Tony, dressed in a white suit with a deep red flower pinned to his chest, was busy trading toasts with Thor, Banner, and the others.
Pepper, wrapped in white lace, stood surrounded by Natasha and Captain Carter, laughing with real joy.
Every face on the island carried a smile, as if everyone was determined to forget every miserable thing from recent memory, if only for a while.
Matthew stood at the edge of the beach, a half-finished glass of champagne in hand.
He watched the two of them, still off toasting guests in the distance, a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth.
Behind him, Ada and Eleanor had traded their work clothes for evening dresses for the occasion.
Right now, the two of them were standing over a freshly grilled plate of charcoal beef short ribs, each with a silver fork in hand, critiquing it in great detail.
"If you ask me, this one's cooked just right. Crisp on the outside, but it's still holding onto the juice inside." Eleanor murmured her assessment.
"Mm. You know your stuff." Ada swallowed her bite. "Only thing off is the salt, a bit too heavy on top."
Listening to the two of them go back and forth over a single piece of meat for this long, with none of the old sarcastic edge they used to have with each other, Matthew couldn't help letting out a small laugh.
Ada and Eleanor exchanged a glance, and then Ada, champagne glass in hand, crossed the soft sand to stand beside Matthew, teasing. "What's got the boss laughing?"
"Nothing. Just thinking the two of you seem a lot closer than you used to be, while I was gone." Matthew didn't turn his head, just spoke with a smile.
Ada laughed lightly at that, following his gaze.
Seeing him fixed on the newlyweds, Ada raised an eyebrow. "Staring at Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts this whole time. Are you jealous, boss?"
Matthew pulled his gaze back and turned to look at her. "What makes you think it's jealousy?"
Ada laughed again, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Just a guess."
"So? Are you, boss?"
"Congratulations." Matthew drew the word out. "Wrong guess."
He took a sip of champagne, looking out at the couple surrounded by well-wishers, and said, unhurried, "I'm not the least bit jealous of them."
At that, Ada swirled the drink in her glass, half convinced, half not, studying the side of his face. "You... really don't?"
Matthew fell silent.
About ten seconds later, he spoke up with a smile. "You know what they say. Marriage is the graveyard of love."
"And I'm nowhere near done living yet. No way I'm climbing into a grave."
Ada took a noncommittal sip of her drink. She could tell, of course, that there was more than a little joking mixed into what he'd said, and didn't push any further.
After a brief silence, Matthew spoke again.
"Maybe... someday I will, though."
His tone had softened considerably, his gaze still fixed on the distance.
"But right now, the company and Holy Terra are both still on the rise, and outside threats keep closing in."
"Once everything's settled, both inside and out, maybe then I'll actually think about something like getting married."
"What do you think?" Matthew glanced over at Ada.
Ada, her eyes lowered, snapped out of her own thoughts. "Oh. Oh! I think... I think that's a good plan~"
"After all, next to everything else going on, getting married really is such a small thing in comparison."
With that, Ada tipped her head back, downed the rest of her drink, and headed back over to Eleanor.
Once she'd gone, Tony and Pepper, glasses in hand, came walking over from the distance.
Tony had a bit of a flush from drink by now, and Pepper had his arm looped through hers, her white lace train dragging faint prints through the sand behind them.
"Hey~ Matthew! Everyone's drinking, and here you are hiding off on your own?" Tony, well into his cups, raised a hand and clapped it right onto Matthew's shoulder.
Matthew smiled and let the hand land without complaint.
"Old habit."
With that, he raised his glass, his tone genuine. "Tony, Pepper. Here's to every day from now on looking just like today. Loud, happy, full of life."
"And, well... hope the kids come soon."
"Thank you for the toast."
Hearing Matthew's well-wishes, Pepper nodded to him, her eyes full of warmth.
Tony grinned at that and clinked glasses with him. "Then I'll gladly take that blessing."
The three of them clinked glasses together and tipped their heads back, draining their drinks in one go.
After that, they chatted a little longer, until Tony got dragged off by someone else for a drinking contest, and Pepper went back to the other women to see to the guests.
By nightfall, the wedding had officially wrapped up.
Lights across the island switched on one by one, washing the whole beach in a warm orange glow.
Since Tony had bought out the entire island, no one felt any rush to leave, and small groups here and there decided to stay the night.
Matthew found a beach chair facing the water and settled into it.
Ada and Eleanor, who'd been beside him earlier, had drifted off to their own rooms on the island at some point without him noticing, leaving him alone, quietly taking in the night air.
"A quiet life. You really do miss it, don't you." Matthew tilted his head back, looking up at the sky full of stars.
The starlight flickered, unsteady.
Everything he'd seen today left him with the thought that, once he finally retired someday, he wanted an island of his own to properly enjoy.
"But a life like that is still a long way off for me, for now."
Ever since coming back from the zombie Marvel universe, Matthew had gotten a real, visceral sense of just how far gone this universe already was.
On the surface, the world looked bright and beautiful. In truth, it was exactly like a polished turd: shiny on the outside, an absolute mess within.
Though the mess here wasn't the same kind of internal collapse as the zombie universe. It was more the feeling of being watched, targeted, by threats from outside.
With so many universes colliding and overlapping with each other, the barriers between worlds, once solid, had grown paper-thin, leaving them exposed to all sorts of things at any given moment.
Sure, Matthew had already reached Celestial-tier, one foot practically already through the door into single-universe-tier, but that still wasn't nearly enough.
At the very least, if the next thing to show up was a Thanos with all six Infinity Stones, the scales wouldn't tip in Matthew's favor anymore.
So.
"I'm still not strong enough." Matthew murmured to himself.
"Only once I'm strong enough that no crisis can touch me will I actually be able to rest easy."
He drew a slow breath in, let it out just as slowly, and closed his eyes, letting himself enjoy the sea breeze and a moment of quiet, alone.
Time slipped by.
In the blink of an eye, another couple of weeks had passed.
In the time since Matthew's return, Holy Terra had already thrown itself into a fresh round of development.
Nick Fury had moved even faster than Matthew expected.
This one-eyed guy had gotten his hands on that galactic-scale fund and it was like some kind of seal had been broken. He'd thrown himself entirely into weapons procurement, not even bothering with his usual roundabout skimming anymore.
Just as Matthew finished clearing his own backlog of business, Nick Fury sent an encrypted call straight through, summoning him to a secret naval port buried beneath what used to be Washington, D.C.
The massive underground port had been built on Nick Fury's orders, issued in Matthew's name, with Apocalypse using his abilities to construct it.
Its ceiling rose over a kilometer high, and the underground space stretched out farther than the eye could see.
A space that absurdly large could easily hold several large space warships docked at once.
Matthew followed Nick Fury through gate after gate, deep into the port.
The first thing he saw on stepping inside was row after row of massive warships, stretching out farther than he could see.
Nick Fury walked ahead of him, his signature black trench coat billowing in the wind kicked up by the port's massive ventilation system.
As he walked, his one eye swept across the ships docked on either side, his tone carrying the unmistakable confidence of a man who genuinely hadn't skimmed a single kickback off the top.
"Mr. Lawrence. About that money you gave me. I've gone through a handful of reasonably reliable channels and picked up quite a haul."
"See if this suits you." He came to a stop and pointed toward the five largest ships in the distance, all in matching silver-grey.
"Five large space warships, seven hundred meters long each!"
"Fully outfitted with warp drives and Titan-class main guns, energy shielding on the exterior. A single ship's firepower could level a small country by itself."
With that, he pointed to twenty slightly smaller ships lined up neatly nearby. "These are the medium battleships. Three hundred meters each, twenty of them total, handling escort duty."
Finally, he drew Matthew's gaze all the way out to the far end. "Those over there are the light combat frigates. Over a thousand of them, decent mobility and support firepower, good for hit-and-run work."
Matthew's gaze followed the tour across the entire port.
He looked over the alien hulls, gleaming with cold light, and gave a light nod.
Sure, it was obvious at a glance these ships weren't brand new. Their exteriors had been heavily refitted, and plenty of them still carried faint traces of their previous owners' insignia.
Most of the markings had been ground off, but you could still make out hints of old battle scars beneath.
None of that mattered to Matthew, though.
What he wanted was firepower, not curb appeal.
As he looked them over, Matthew also noticed the hulls had been coated with a layer of sub-Adamantium alloy, and a few of the modifications clearly carried Tony Stark's design fingerprints.
Watching Matthew sweep his gaze over the fleet, a thoughtful look on his face, Nick Fury let out a small chuckle. "You've probably already worked out these are all secondhand, right?"
"Mm." Matthew nodded.
Hearing that, Fury went on. "Don't let 'secondhand' fool you, though. Every one of these has had a solid load of upgrades bolted on."
"Every ship in here's had a full firepower upgrade. Wherever a gun could go, we put one in, and every power core that needed swapping has been swapped."
"Even the energy shielding you'd normally only find on top-tier ships, I had Tony Stark install across the whole fleet."
"I won't claim this secondhand fleet could go toe-to-toe with a proper galactic empire's main battle line. But if all you need is to wipe out every species on some low-tier backwater planet-"
He paused there, his one eye fixed on Matthew, the corner of his mouth curling into something a little cold. "This'll do more than enough."
"Of course, before any of this goes into official use, I'll run through everything one more time."
"Whatever still needs adding on or reworking, I'll get it handled as fast as possible, so we can get the fleet operational sooner rather than later."
Listening to him, Matthew reached out and clapped Fury on the shoulder. "Good work."
"Oh, right, Nick. That Holy Accord I had you get every country to sign a while back. Where's that stand now?"
The so-called Holy Accord was, in essence, something like a global mutual defense pact.
Any country that signed it would fall under Holy Terra's protection.
In return, Holy Terra would station troops in that country, though without interfering in its internal affairs.
And once signed, whether the country was attacked or was the one doing the attacking, Holy Terra would step in and lend a hand the moment it was asked.
Of course, to keep anyone from gaming the system, no two signatory nations were allowed to go to war with each other. Break that rule, and Holy Terra would simply erase both countries involved.
As for the Holy Accord itself, Matthew had no interest in forcing anyone's hand.
Sign if you wanted to. Don't, if you didn't.
But the offer only came around once. Turn it down this time, and even if a country changed its mind later, Matthew wasn't going to give them a second chance.
Hearing Matthew ask about the Holy Accord, Fury's face broke into a grin. "Just like you figured. Everyone signed."
"After all, join the Holy Accord and every other country gives you a wide berth automatically."
"At the very least, under that protection, no signatory country's getting pushed around anymore."
Hearing that, Matthew nodded, satisfied. "Good. As long as they signed."
"Once everyone's pulled onto the same side, that's when people actually start pulling together when trouble hits, instead of fighting each other while the real threat closes in."
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