"You're welcome." Harley's voice greeted Tony as he came around the corner with the file in his hands. He saw the kid was wearing a sort of disguise with a gray cowboy hat and colourful poncho. There were police cars parked outside of the bar, Officers come to bring their loyal dead back.
"For what? Did I miss something?" Tony asked casually.
"Me, saving your life." Harley clarified. He also punched Tony in the arm.
"Yeah. A, I saved you first. B, thanks. Sort of. And C, if you do someone a solid, don't' be a yutz. All right? Just play it cool. Otherwise you come off grandiose."
"Unlike you?" Harley asked as Tony unlocked the car with the stolen keys. Tony looked at the kid. "Admit it, you need me. We're connected."
"What I need is for you to go home, be with your mom, keep your trap shut, guard the suit, and stay connected to the telephone because if I call, you better pick up. Okay?" Tony asked. "Can you feel that? We're done here." He patted the kid on the shoulder once, "Move out of the way, or I'm gonna run you over. Bye kid."
Tony started up the car and then rolled down the window. He sighed, "I'm sorry kid. You did good."
"So now you're just gonna leave me here, like my dad?"
Tony thought about it. "Yeah." He paused, "Wait, you're guilt-tripping me, aren't you?"
"I'm cold." Harley scrunched up his shoulders.
"I can tell." Tony said in the same mocking sad voice. "You know how I can tell? Because we're connected." And with that, he drove away.
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"You ever had a chick straddling you and you look up and suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?" Tony asked.
"Yeah, I've had that. Who is this?" Rhodey's voice spoke on the other side.
"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?"
"Your redesign, your big rebrand, that was AIM , right?"
"Yeah."
"I'm gonna find a heavy-duty comm sat right now. I need your login."
"It's the same as its' always been WarMachine68." Rhodey replied.
"And password, please?"
"Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack it, Tony." Rhodey said, avoiding the question.
"It's not the 80's, nobody says 'hack' anymore. Give me your login."
Rhodey sighed, "War Machine rocks. With an X. All caps."
Tony laughed on the phone.
"Yeah, okay." Rhodey sighed.
"That is so much better than 'Iron Patriot.'"
Tony did an illegal U-turn in the middle of the road, in order to drive back to the parking lot of the building in front of him that was holding a Christmas pageant.
He managed to sneak in to one of the New vans and started to. . . for a lack of a better term. . . hack the system. "That ain't gonna cut it." He muttered, seeing the 9.5 FPS with a 74 Ping and a download speed of 9.1.
"We talked about this," Tony heard someone say as there was a clattering sound and the van door was opened a little bit. "Excuse me sir. I don't know who-"
Tony turned around in the spiny chair with a finger pressed to his lips. "Shh."
The man's mouth dropped and Tony lowered his finger, grinning. "Mom, I need to call you back. Something magical is happening." Tony attempted to make sure the man stayed quiet by making various shushing sounds. "Tony Stark is in my van!"
"Shh! Keep it down."
"Tony Stark is in my van."
"No, he's not."
"I knew you were still alive!"
"Come on in. Close the door." he hissed.
"Wow, can I just say sir-"
"Yeah."
"I am your biggest fan."
Knew it.
"Okay. First, is this your van? Is anyone else gonna come in?"
"No, no, no. Just us."
"Great. What's your name?"
"Gary."
"Gary." They shook hands.
"Oh wow." Gary sighed, putting a second hand over Tony's.
"Right there is fine." Tony grinned awkwardly. He was used to this, but it was still just a little weird.
"Okay."
"Okay? I get a lot of this, it's okay."
"Oh, good. Can I just say?"
"What do you want? Yeah."
"I don't know if you can tell, but I have like, patterned my whole look after you. My hair's a little-"
"It's fine." Tony cringed.
"It's not right, 'cause there's no product in it."
"Right." Tony said, trying not to get to frustrated.
"I don't want to make things awkward for you, but I do have to show you- Boom!" He held his arm out to show off the Tony Stark tattoo on his arm.
Wonderful.
"A Hispanic Scott Baio. I'm sorry. Is that me?" Tony asked, pointing to it.
"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 had reached the end of his tether, grabbing Gary by the 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 ISDNs. Pump it up by about 40%."
"Got it." Gary barley breathed out.
"All right? It's a mission."
"Yeah."
"Tony needs Gary."
"And Gary needs Tony."
Ew. No. He'd stick with Y/N.
"Be quiet about it. Go."
"Yeah."
Once he got the go ahead that the power was up, he managed to get into the files. He fought against the restrictions, before he finally found some files in the AIM section. There were a bunch of faces with audio recordings, and the first one he turned on was the one of Mrs. Davis' boy.
"What would you regard as the defining moment of your life?" A voice that was off camera asked.
"Well, uh, I think that would be the day I decided not to let my injury beat me."
Tony clicked next on the woman who had attacked him outside the bar. In the video, her right arm was cut off at the elbow, healed over. But it was very obvious from the fight that she had both hands.
"Will you please state your name for the camera?"
"Ellen Brandt."
"Okay. So the injections are administered periodically." The voice sounded somewhat familiar and when the camera changed, Tony saw Aldrich Killian' there. "Addiction will not be tolerated. And those who cannot regulate will be cut off from the programme."
Tony found his next clip, which was a cleaner version of Killian speaking, his hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Once misfits, cripples, You are the next iteration of human evolution."
Tony hit another key and saw four different cameras of doctors and patients moving along a hallway. "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."
They were put into what looked like standing gurneys. Metal plates came down around their shoulders, as though there were about to go on a roller coaster ride. "Today is your glory. Let's begin."
He watched as Ellen's arm started to grow, her screams of pain echoing, making him flinch almost. Her arm looked as though it was forming out of molten lava, while the rest of her body glowed orange.
The boy next to her started to scream, his entire body lit with orange. "We gotta get out of here! We gotta get out of here!" Killian demanded, turning away from the man who was screaming in agony. "Get her out! Get them out of here!" The man glowed so brightly that he exploded.
"A bomb is not a bomb when it's a misfire." Tony whispered under his breath. "The stuff doesn't always work, right pal? It's faulty, but you found a buyer, didn't you? Sold it to the Mandarin." Tony snapped his fingers. "Got you pal."
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"What happened. Fun fact. Before he built rockets for the Nazis, the idealistic Wernher von Braun dreamed of space travel. He stargazed. Do you know what he said when the first V-2 hit London? 'The Rocket performed perfectly. It just landed on the wrong planet'. See, we all begin wide-eyed. Pure science." Maya smiled. "And then the ego steps in, the obsession. And you look up, you're a long way from shore."
"You can't be to hard on yourself Maya." You said softly as you carefully put Everleigh down on the chair.
You had taken a nap while Maya had driven. You had left the directions for Clint and Natasha's cabin in Colorado on the dashboard. When you'd woken up, it was off and you were pulling into a hotel because Maya said the both of you needed sleep.
Couldn't really argue with that, your entire body hurt from sleeping in the car.
Now the two of you were going to share a hotel room tonight and hopefully make the rest of the journey to Colorado tomorrow. You shouldn't be to far away. You had really thought you'd make it tonight.
Of course, your phone was still on recording mode. You wanted to make sure that Fury had every scrap of information available. You'd slipped outside to call and had talked to Nat, Fury, Clint, and Steve all at the same time. Steve was supposed to get to the cabin tomorrow, he was waiting for his second flight. You'd both probably get there around the same time.
Fury wasn't joining the rest of you, going to stay at one of the SHIELD bases, but regardless, he wanted to be kept in the loop.
"I mean, you gave your research to a think tank." You continued, tucking a blanket around Everleigh now. There was no crib in the room and the chair was the next best thing. She was tiny enough that she could sleep comfortably on the chair, the chair was comfortable, and she also wouldn't fall off.
"Yeah, but Killian built that think tank on military contracts."
"That's exactly what Tony's company used to do." You shrugged again. "So don't judge yourself."
"Thank you Y/N. I really appreciate that."
There was suddenly a knock at the hotel door. You quickly went to the door, knowing that it was room service for the three of you. You needed to feed Everleigh soon, and to make sure you had ample milk, you yourself needed to be fed.
"Hi, good evening. Come on in." You said happily, opening the door as wide as it could go to make sure that he could get the cart in.
"Good evening." He said back.
You turned to look over your shoulder for one second, and saw Killian standing behind the server, his hands snapping his neck.
"MAYA RUN!" You shouted, leaping backwards towards Everleigh. You screamed as he caught you around your upper arm, his hand burning hot.
"Hello Y/N." Killian said smoothly as he tossed you against the wall. You crashed against it, landing on the floor next to your phone. His hand came down, holding you around the neck to the floor. He looked up and over at Maya. "So you want to tell me why you were at Stark's mansion last night?"
"I'm trying to fix this thing!" Maya said angrily. "I didn't know you and the master were gonna blow the place up."
"Oh I see. So, you were trying to save Stark when he threatened us?" Killian asked.
You struggled in Killian's grasp, feeling both scared and frustrated. How could you fail to get out of this life-threatening chokehold when you had fought aliens only a year before?
Lack of training, you realized. You hadn't done any Agent training in months. You were out of practice.
"I've told you, Killian, we can use him." Maya huffed.
You grasped at Killian's face, but his arm was longer, leaving you at the disadvantage since he could hold is body further away.
"Y/N. Y/N. Y/N." He said, inching away from your fingers.
"Look, if we want to launch product next year, I need Stark." Maya continued. "He just lacked a decent incentive. Now, he has two."
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"You heard all that, right?" Steve asked harshly as he delayed getting on the next plane.
"Yes, Rogers, I heard that." Fury said in an exasperated voice. "And I will track her down. Barton, Romanoff, be ready to leave when Rogers gets there."
"Yes Sir." Natasha's voice was soft on the other end of the group call.
"We'll see you when you get here Cap." Clint's voice was friendly on the other side.
"Right." Steve sighed, hanging up with a bit of difficulty before boarding the plane. He looked out the window, feeling nauseous. These airplanes were definitely different from the quinjets. He didn't like them as much. They felt to. . . vulnerable.
And it wasn't as fast as the quinjets. Speed was needed. What if he got there to late to do anything? He tried to text Clint and Nat to go without him, that he'd catch up, but he wasn't sure if the text sent. It was hard enough dealing with new technology with the weird airplane interference.
Steve tried to relax into the plane, running his fingers along his own tattoo, a little golden retriever.
He closed his eyes, trying to remember the feeling of wind through his fur, and the happy feeling that came with his soulmate. Of running, jumping into-
Steve was jolted out of his peaceful thoughts as the plane took off. His hand dropped from his soulmate mark. It didn't matter anymore.
He just had to focus on saving Starks'.