"Obadiah and his damn bowling ball head can honest to god just go to hell,"
The comment from Audelia grew a laugh out of Tony as he situated the last portion of the suit's boots onto his feet. Deli stood at one of the many lab tables, going through the last of the numbers and looking over the suit specs to make sure everything is in order.
"It's not him, per-say, Dell. It's the board-"
"Well the board can shove it up their asses," Deli cut off, grabbing onto the chest plate and walked over to Tony, fastening it onto him as she looked up at her best friend. "They all need to realize that Stark Industries wouldn't even be a fraction of what it is without you and all your hard work-"
"And yours,"
"-and if they want to lock us both out then they need to get their heads out of their asses and realize what they're doing," Deli finished off, raising an eyebrow at Tony as she stepped back, allowing him to take his position on the concrete floor of the lab. "By the way, still pissed you did the first flight test without me."
"Don't go on dates with Weighty Nate then-"
"Tony-"
"What! He's put on a couple pounds, that all I'm saying," Tony shot her a wink, coupled with his famous Stark smirk, before completely taking his position. "Jarvis, let's go."
Deli stood back, biting her nails as she anxiously watched as Jarvis activated, putting the last few bits and pieces of the outer layer of the suit onto Tony. He reached down, grabbing the mask from the table and placing it onto his face.
Taking the cue, Deli moved behind the main computer control station and slipped her earpiece into her ear, activating it and the screens before her as she got a live feed through Tony's helmet.
"Engage head's up display," Tony asked Jarvis to do as Deli moved about, checking the key system operations.
"Do a virtual walk around and do a check on control surfaces," Deli told the AI as he calculated all of the necessary operations. She peaked her head up from around the computers, a grin settling on her lips as she watched Tony's suit.
All of the nuts, bolts, and pieces of the suit shifted around in place, moving together like puzzle pieces as they formed against Tony's body. From the legs, to the body, to the arms, all of the pieces molded together until it was almost as if the suit and him were one with each other. As the final bolt settled into place, the suit turned to face Deli, and she could practically hear the smirk in her best friend's voice.
"She's all good to me, I say we make you one now,"
"That's a conversation for a later date," Audelia shot back with a smile as she moved back to the control center. "Alright, the test is complete. We'll prepare for power down so we can run diagnostics-"
"Um, yeah, about that...Jarvis do a weather and ATC check, start listening in on ground control,"
Deli's head shot up, her eyes wide as she stepped out from behind the desk, shaking her head frantically.
"No, Tony, you are not taking this out! There are terabytes of calculations that I have yet to be able to go through, if we were to do a flight test right now there would be no telling of what might happen and I can't let you-"
"Dell, sometimes you have to walk before you can run,"
"Except you're not running, you're flying!" Deli ran a hand through her hair, shaking her head frantically. "Tony, this is dangerous. What if something goes wrong?"
"That's why I have you back here on backup controls and Jarvis as my co-pilot. Have a little faith, would ya?"
Deli let out a sigh, retreating to behind the control desk once again. She knew there was no talking Tony out of this. Besides, if anything were to go wrong Deli could activate remote control from her end and fix everything.
Placing herself before the controls to monitor the suit, Tony called out for a start up as he slowly lifted off the ground before flying up through the garage hallway.
Audelia's eyes went wide as she watched the screens before her, in awe of what she saw. She could see the horizon out over the ocean from Tony's viewpoint, the lights of the city as he flew back over it.
"WOOHOO!"
"Alright, we might need to make me one," Deli called back to her friend, eyes filled with wonder as she watched the screen. "We actually did it."
"Yeah we did!"
Tony flew past the ferris wheel along the beach, a laugh escaping Deli's throat as he zoomed in on a little boy who dropped his ice cream in shock at the mere sight of him. Tony suddenly veered upward, facing the sky.
"Tony, this is too dangerous," Deli called out, her excitement completely gone as she realized Tony was flying straight upward.
"Dell, relax! Do you know what the altitude record is for an SR-71?"
"85,000 feet, but Tony-"
"Records are made to be broken, come on!"
Feeling as if she was holding her breath, Deli quickly sat down at the desk and went through the suit functions, her screens glitching out and the numbers falling from their stable positions as almost all functions started blinking red.
"Tony, you're too high up! There's too much ice in the atmosphere, it's building up! You have to break it and deploy flaps-" the screens showing her Tony's vantage point cut off, her eyes going wide. "Tony? Tony!"
Without wasting a second, knowing that her best friend was now falling through the air to his imminent death, Deli quickly got to work on the controls.
Pulling up the specs on the suit and pulling up the profile on Jarvis, Deli moved quickly through each of the functions, desperately typing in her override codes on the suit to reboot the AI. She could reboot him from here, but Tony would have to break the ice and deploy flaps manually.
Mumbling to herself, she moved through the last of Jarvis's functions and entered her override code, the screens before her popping back to life just as she saw Tony about to hit the ground in the middle of downtown, narrowly avoiding the cars on the road as they swerved before flying back up into the air.
"YEAH!"
"Uh uh, woohoo," Deli murmured under her breath, falling back in her chair as she ran a hand down her face, feeling as if she could breath again. "This is enough heart attacks for one night, please just come back to the lab before you decide to go for a deep sea diving record."
"Honestly, not a horrible idea-"
"Tony-"
"-for another day, I'm coming, relax,"
Taking the moment to try and regain the years on her life she had just lost from that fiasco, her phone dinged on the table. Deli picked it up, quickly replying to Nathan's text that she would be home soon for what he described as 'move night'. She had a feeling it meant watching another Tom Cruise movie, and she was far from in the mood.
Her phone fell from her hands as she let out a shout of surprise as the ceiling over Tony's cars car crashing down, his suit falling onto one of the cars as the alarm blared. Dum-E rolled up, spraying him with the fire extinguisher as Tony maneuvered himself to his feet, Jarvis quickly deploying arms to help remove the suit.
Deli moved over to the fridge, grabbing an ice pack from inside as she walked over to her best friend, who was now suit free, and passing it to him with a smirk.
"Didn't I warn you that killing power would make the suit too heavy on impact-"
"Yeah yeah, just record that the main transducer feels sluggish at plus 40 altitude," Deli rolled her eyes, her smirk remaining since she knew she was right as she moved back to the desk, inputting the information as she grabbed her phone. "Hey, what's that?"
Looking up, Deli's eyes followed Tony's point of view to the brown box on the lab table.
"Oh, it's a gift I had made for you. Pepper dropped it off for me,"
Placing his ice pack down on the table, Tony moved forward toward the box, tearing up open to reveal the glass case that sat inside, holding his first arc reactor with words engraved around the edges.
PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART
"Not many people get to see the side of you that I see," Deli told her friend, a soft smile on her lips as she moved to stand at the opposite end of the table across from him. "They don't get to see the compassionate, loyal, amazing man that I do. They love calling you heartless. I thought maybe next time you could show them this, prove them all wrong."
He looked up at Audelia, just staring at the smile on her face and the sparkle in her eyes. She bowed her head, the smile never disappearing as she gave a wave to him, walking through the door of the lab with one last look back at him for the night as she ascended the stairs.
Tony Stark did have a heart. All the proof he needed was currently walking up the stairs.
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I love them with all my heart. I truly do. They're beautiful together. And damn I can't wait to write the next chapter it's going to be amazing.