tony needs gary, and gary needs tony
MARLENE rested her feet on the dashboard after listening to everything Tony had been through in past three months alone, along with the insight he had on the Mandarin case. He was going after the man, and Marlene nodded along. She was glad, quite oddly, to be doing something like this again. She knew she could be getting the bad guys everyday if she worked at S.H.I.E.L.D., but something about Fury did not sit right with her.
"Phone?" Tony asked suddenly, gesturing for her to hand her the phone in her pocket. Grabbing it, she handed it to him. "I'm calling Rhodey. You ever met him?"
"No," she said with a shake of her head.
"He's a treat. You'll like him," Tony replied before putting the phone on speaker once a man's voice filtered through with a confused greeting. "You ever have a chick straddling you and you look up and suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?"
Rhodey answered without hesitation. "Yeah, I've had that. Who is this?"
Tony grinned at Marlene. "It's me, pal. Now, last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me. What are you doing?"
"A little knock-and-talk, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?" Rhodey replied.
"Your redesign, your big rebrand, that was AIM, right?" Tony said, ignoring his question. Rhodey agreed. "I'm gonna find a heavy-duty comm sat right now, I need your login."
"It's the same as it's always been, WarMachine68," Rhodey said.
Marlene smirked at the username. "And password, please," Tony said.
"Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack in, Tony."
Tony rolled his eyes. "It's not the '80s, nobody says hack any more. Give me your login."
Rhodey let out a large sigh. "WAR MACHINE ROX with an 'X,' all caps."
Tony let the laughter spill out as Marlene could not help but join in. Tony's laugh was infectious. "That is so much better than lron Patriot."
As they ended the call, Tony drove until Marlene pointed out a news crew. She eyed him. "Could you use their computers?"
Tony clicked his tongue. "Good eye, Elsa," he said, pulling over. "Stay low. I don't want me being alive to be known."
"Makes sense," Marlene replied sarcastically.
As they made it around another van, Tony grabbed her wrist to keep her from walking forward. They could hear people talking. Tony tapped the van they were by, glad when no one tapped back or opened as if they were inside of it. Opening it, Tony shoved Marlene inside less than gracefully.
"Ass," she muttered, moving out of the way to let Tony do his work. Tony immediately began to type on the computer, but he could not get a good signal.
"That ain't gonna cut it," Tony murmured.
Suddenly, both froze as the van doors opened. Marlene let one hand raise to prepare to alight when the man began to talk, "We talked about this. Excuse me, sir. I don't know who—" When his eyes met Tony's, it was as if stars lit in them. Tony pushed Marlene's hand down, knowing the guy was a fan by the reaction.
"Shh," Tony said quickly, pulling the man inside.
The man was on the phone, so he said, "Mom, I need to call you back. Something magical is happening. Tony Stark is in my van."
Tony called out again, "Shh. Keep it down."
"Tony Stark is in my van!"
"No, he's not," Tony countered.
"I knew you were still alive!"
"Come on in. Close the door," Tony said, making the man shut the door all of the way. The man's eyes flickered to Marlene's before going back to Tony.
He was smiling so big. "Oh, wow. Can I just say, sir–"
"Yep."
"—I am your biggest fan."
Tony waved him off. "Okay. First, is this your van? Is anyone else gonna come in?"
"No, no, no. Just us," he answered.
"Great. What's your name?"
"Gary," the man said.
Tony asked, "Gary?" to make sure. "Great, this is Marlene. Marlene, this is Gary, my biggest fan."
Marlene waved half-heartedly as Gary got closer to Tony. "Oh, wow."
Tony pushed his hand out. "Right there is fine."
"Okay."
Tony smiled reassuringly as Marlene watched the awkward exchange. "Okay? I get a lot of this, it's okay."
"Oh, good. Can I just say?"
"What do you want?"
Gary laughed. "Yeah. I don't know if you can tell, but I have, like, patterned my whole look after you. My hair's a little—" he said as he gestured to his face. Marlene smirked at Tony's grimace.
"It's fine," Tony said as he waved him off.
"It's not right, 'cause there's no product in it."
"Right," Tony said with a nod.
"I don't want to make things awkward for you, but I do have to show you," he paused, lifting his shirt sleeve to show a tattoo of what was supposed to be Tony's face. "Boom!"
Tony rose a brow. "A Hispanic Scott Baio. I'm sorry. Is that me?" Marlene could not help the laugh that escaped her lips.
Gary nodded. "Yeah. It's... I mean... I had them do it off a doll that I made, so it's not like it's off a picture. So it's a little bit—"
"Tony," Marlene called with a smirk.
Tony nodded. He grabbed Gary's shoulders. "Gary. Listen to me, okay? I don't want to clip your wings, here. We're both a little over-excited. I got an issue. I'm chasing bad guys. I'm trying to grab a little something from some hard-crypt data files. I don't have enough juice. I need you to jump on the roof... Right? Recalibrate the lSDNs. Pump it up by about 40%."
Gary nodded with wide eyes. "Got it."
"All right? It's a mission," Tony reiterated.
"Yeah!"
"Tony needs Gary."
"And Gary needs Tony."
Tony cringed a bit again but nodded. "Be quiet about it. Go."
When Tony typed on the computer once Gary had gotten the signal to reach, he was able to log in into the files using Rhodey's credentials. Marlene leaned over his shoulder as he opened up a file about Chad Davis.
"What would you regard as the defining moment of your life?" a man that was listed as Aldrich Killian said.
Chad Davis was the one who answered. "Well, uh, I think that would be the day I decided not to let my injury beat me."
Tony typed again and another video showed up.
"Will you please state your name for the camera?" Killian said.
"Ellen Brandt," the woman replied.
"I fought her," Tony said with a scoff. "That's the one I blew up like popcorn."
Marlene cringed as Killian continued, "Okay. So, the injections are administered periodically. Addiction will not be tolerated. And those who cannot regulate will be out from the programme." Tony went to another video. "Once misfits, cripples... You are the next iteration of human evolution. Everybody, before we start... I promise you, looking back at your life, there will be nothing as bitter as the memory of that glorious risk you prudently elected to forego. Today is your glory- Let's begin."
Marlene watched with wide eyes as Brandt's missing arm grew back as she glowed red. The other volunteers glowed red and began to scream as well.
"We gotta get out of here! We gotta get out of here! Get her out! Get them out of here!" Killian screamed as one of the volunteers exploaded.
Tony began to mumble to himself, "A bomb is not a bomb when it's a misfire. The stuff doesn't always work. Right, pal? It's faulty, but you found a buyer, didn't you? Sold it to the Mandarin. Got you, pal."