It wasn't Tony Stark's first time in Japan but he was pretty sure this was going to be his least favorite trip there. This trip was all about business and was partially supposed to be a distraction from the fact that Pepper was no longer in his life and the Avengers were broken up. This trip was going to help Stark Industries but that didn't mean he had to like it.
He approached the Oshiro building with trepidation as the car that had dropped him off at the door drove away. He'd had plenty of business dealings with Jun Oshiro. Jun's company had supplied Stark Industries with circuit boards for years and they had met on several occasions and had a friendly cordial business dinner. Tony had liked the older man well enough and recognized that they made good business partners. However, since Jun had passed away a month earlier, his daughter Misao didn't seem to relish the partnership in the same way at all. She had ignored his last three orders for parts, ignored his emails, and refused his phone calls. Rather than drop Oshiro Corp entirely and end a multimillion dollar deal, Tony decided to take a little trip and find out what the problem was.
Tony was let into the building and sent to the proper floor and room to meet with Misao. He had no idea what to expect of the old lady. Jun had been almost a hundred years old when he died. Misao had to be be fairly old herself. Why a traditional Japanese business woman would be blowing off her trade deals like this was a mystery to him. A mystery that he hoped would soon be solved.
With all this in mind, Tony was wholly unprepared when he found that the room he had been directed to was not an office or a conference room but a large open area where a man and a woman were sparring with katana swords. Tony's first thought was that he had somehow entered the wrong room and he started to back out and apologize.
"I will be with you in a moment Mr Stark," The woman called out. Maybe there was still some mistake. She wasn't a woman in her seventies at all. She was a much younger woman of perhaps thirty or thirty five years of age. She wore black yoga pants, a red tank top, no shoes and her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. The man she was fighting was a rather large muscular foe compared to her but she seemed to be doing a decent job of beating him. Tony realized that bringing him here while she beat a larger foe might be simply a display of power on her part. He really wasn't impressed.
"What can I do for you Mr Stark?" She said as she sheathed her sword into a scaffold that had been leaning in the corner and then hung the blade on her back with a strap across her chest.
"You're Misao?" he asked, just to be sure he didn't have it wrong.
"Yes, were you expecting someone else?"
"I assumed you'd be older," he told her quite honestly. He'd always been honest with Jun. He wasn't going to treat her any differently.
"Yes, well my father married three times. His first family was killed in a tsunami long ago. The second wife had no children and eventually died of cancer. He was sixty five when he married my mother and since I was the only heir he had, I got stuck with the company." Misao said.
"I see," so she she didn't want to be a businesswoman. Maybe that was half the reason he was having such a hard time reaching her. She didn't take her job seriously. "So what would you be doing if you weren't stuck with the company?" he asked, maybe it would help to know more about her.
"I don't know. Climbing mountains, sailing, learning how to make swords like the one I carry…living as far away from people as I can get." she shrugged as if it didn't matter but Tony was pretty sure that in her mind it did matter. Misao led the way out of her training room and headed down the hallway.
"Well you know if you hire someone to run your company for you then you could be off doing those things as much as you wanted?" Tony pointed out, following her.
"If I hired someone to run the company they might do a good job," Misao said, stopping in front of a closed door and opening it.
"Isn't that the point?" He followed her into a room that actually was an office. There were more swords on the walls and a large window viewing the city.
"That's the last thing I want. The only thing I want for this company is for it to die." MIsao took a seat at her desk.
"Are you serious?" Tony sat in a chair across from her. "If you hate the company so much, why not sell it? You're gonna upset a lot of business partners by trying to kill this place."
"Is that why you're here Mr Stark? As an upset business partner?"
"Have you seen my emails?" he asked, deciding it was best not to address whether or not he was upset just yet. "If you've seen them then you know why I'm here."
"So it's about the shipments?"
"Yes. The shipments. The boxes full of those things that your company builds. I need some more of them. That's why I'm here. Are you going to have them for me or not? I have a place in India I can try buying from if you'd prefer I just thought that for your father's sake I should be buying here." Tony said, a little irritated.
Misao made a disgusted face. "I thought you might say that. And the answer is no, for my father's sake I will do absolutely nothing for you."
"Okay then. India it is." Tony got to his feet.
Misao stood as well. "I will see you out."
Tony really didn't need her to see him out but there was no sense making this visit any worse than it already was. She got on the elevator and they went down to the first floor in silence. As they stepped out into the lobby, two men with distinctive matching tattoos and dressed in black entered the front door of the building. In an instant, Misao had pulled the sword from her back and had it pointed in their direction.
"Misao Oshiro," One of the men said as he slowly drew his own sword. "Tell us where it is and we might let you live."
"I'm not afraid of you," Misao said, angry.
"Your father said the same thing. So we will offer you the same deal we offered him. You give us the codes and free access to the vault and we bring you everything of value that we find just like we did for him." The man said. Several more men with swords and matching tattoos entered the lobby.
"I already told you, I'm not like my father. I'm not telling you where it is."
The men all began to draw their swords and converge on the both of them.
Misao took a step back reaching for the button for the elevator as she did. The doors opened and she grabbed Tony's arm and pulled him into the elevator with her, hitting the door close button in almost the same movement. She immediately pulled open a panel in the elevator and set to work,
"I'm sorry, I have to lock down the building. That means we'll both be trapped upstairs. They would have killed you if I'd left you out there," she said, anxiously working to initiate her lockdown.
"Who were those guys?"
"Part of a League that exists to exploit something my father stole from them a long time ago," Misao tried to explain. "When his first family died, my father was obsessed with finding a means to bring them back. He searched ancient books and the books sent him to the mountains of China where he found this huge gemstone that supposedly had the power to grant life. It was in a temple, protected and worshipped by men like those men downstairs. They want it back."
"Maybe I'm missing something here but why not give it to them?"
"Because it really does have the power to grant life, life and strength and bravery and after it turns the people who worship it into super soldiers with no fear of death or pain, after years of worship it makes them insane," Misao told him. "My father let those men come and worship...and they did horrible things… but they paid him a lot and they made him rich…" she said bitterly.
"I get it," Tony said, it all finally making sense. "If I help you get rid of those guys can we keep our partnership?"
Misao glanced over at him with questions in her eyes as if he might be insane.
"All I have to do is press this button on my watch and my Ironman suit will come to me," Tony explained.
"I don't need to be rescued," she said, putting the elevator panel back into place and pushing the button for the fifteenth floor.
"It wouldn't be a rescue it would be more of a coordinated assault." he argued.
"I'm not sure I'll be keeping the company open anyway," she said. "It isn't right, given the way it was established in the first place but if you did want to help me I can see that you get shipments of whatever is left before I do close the company down. There's a lot left."
"Deal," Tony agreed.
Misao's sparring partner was waiting for them when the elevator doors opened on fifteen. "What's going on Misao? Why are we on lockdown?"
"They're here. The Emerald League." she told him.
"How many are in and how many are out?" the young man asked.
"About ten in, I have no idea how many are outside. Could be all ninety…" she said, heading to her office where she started taking weapons down from the walls.
"I could go out there, scale down the building and find out," the young man offered.
"Don't be stupid Hikaru," she said, irritated with him. "Just check the security cameras."
"Right," Hikaru left them to do as he was told.
"Smart one there," Tony commented. "Does he work for you?" Tony figured Hikaru was probably her boyfriend but he wasn't going to ask.
"He is my cousin. He is like a brother to me," she said as she pulled on a pair of shoes, still barefoot from before.
Okay, so not a boyfriend. Though Tony wasn't sure why he cared if she even had one. She was at least fifteen years younger than he was and was probably popular enough in this city that it would be easy for her to find a man her own age. Besides, this was supposed to be professional. He could do professional. Then he watched her bend down to tie her shoes and he wasn't so sure he actually could. Misao stood and caught him looking at her and instead of being angry like he might have expected of someone of her confidence, she responded with a blush and the a small smile.
Misao pushed past him out of the office and down the hall in the direction Hikaru had gone. They found the young man in the surveillance room. There were screens monitoring the whole building.
"Well?" Misao asked him
"Well what?" Hikaru asked.
"How many are out there?"
"Right. It looks like maybe thirty. So they didn't bring the whole League." he told her. "Now can I scale down the building and fight them?"
"No." Misao said. "You're not scaling down the building. Forget that idea. What you can do, is go down the main elevator shaft, take the tunnel on eight, then the back stairs to the basement. When you get down there open the cash vault."
"Whatever you say Masao, but why am I doing this?" Hikaru moved to go.
"Because they expect their god to be locked safely in a vault so we need to give them that." she said.
"Right. Go open the vault. I can do that." Hikaru said.
"Is he…?" Tony started to ask once Hikaru was gone.
"He's just a little slower to catch on than most people. He's got a good heart though, People always underestimate him," she replied.
"Since I don't know this building or those guys out there, you mind telling me what your plan is?" Tony asked.
"Evacuate my employees out some of the basement tunnels. Trap some of the League in the vault, and the others, well we'll have to make sure we control where the break into the building so they can't get in too many at a time…" Misao turned to one of the computers in the surveillance room and pulled up a schematic of the building. "I was thinking here or here."
"Looks reasonable to me," he said. "But how do we get there? You shut down the elevators and locked the stairwells. We going down the elevator shaft like Hikaru?" he honestly didn't like the idea of climbing fifteen stories down an elevator shaft.
"We can use my father's private elevator. It's too old to be part of the system and it comes out by the electrical room in the basement so it's pretty far from the lobby." she led the way to her father's old office and a vintage elevator in one corner of the room. It honestly looked like it wasn't really meant for two and Tony was about to suggest that he go first and make sure everything was clear before she came down to the basement. He never got the chance to make that suggestion. Miseo opened the gate to the elevator, stepped inside, the grabbed Tony's arm and pulled him in with her, closing the gate behind them.
Nope, the elevator was definitely not made for two. There was barely an inch or two of space between him and Miseo. He could feel the warmth her body standing this close, plus the fact that she was shorter than he was and in this proximity he could see right down her shirt.
"Maybe this thing isn't meant to take so much weight," Tony spoke up. "I could get out and…"
"I don't think so," Misao said. "It's more fun this way."
Tony was a little surprised by her words. It had actually been a long time since he'd had a woman flirt with him like this. He'd made himself unavailable while he was with Pepper and the Avengers keeping him busy had helped with that. He hadn't expected this sort of behavior from a younger woman and a beautiful and wealthy woman at that. It felt good. He grinned a little.
The elevator lurched a little when it started to go down and the movement knocked Misao forward into Tony. He took the opportunity to put his arms around her and steady her. She didn't seem to mind in the least and didn't try to let go of him once the elevator was steady either.
"You're being pretty friendly all of a sudden," Tony pointed out. "You didn't even shake my hand when I arrived and now this."
"I am just trying to make up for my rudeness," she replied, amusement in her tone.
"I don't think it's supposed to work like that. You're not supposed to be rude to a guy on purpose just so you can kiss and make-up later."
"So you would prefer a handshake to sharing this elevator?" she asked.
"I didn't say that,"
"Then you're saying that my apology for my rudeness should include a kiss?" she glanced up at him but he couldn't quite tell from her expression if she were serious or not.
"Maybe," Tony settled on as a reply.
"Then maybe it will, later." she said.
"See now you're just trying to string me along and get me to do what you want for a while all for the possibility of a kiss," he said just to see what she would do.
"Would that even work on you?" Misao was still pressed close to him and those big brown eyes of hers were captivating, as was the view down her shirt.
"Probably," he admitted.
The elevator lurched to a stop in the basement. Misao opened the gate with a smile on her face. "That's good to know." she said as she exited the confined space.
Tony followed her down a dimly lit corridor and was a little surprised to hear voices in the distance. They rounded a corner and he saw another elevator marked "Employees Only," and a number of people exiting into the basement.
"This one wasn't on lockdown because it needs a key for use anyway." Misao explained on seeing his expression.
"Okay then why…?" He was going to ask why she had forced him into the claustrophobic death trap elevator when she still had this one in use but seeing the amused look on her face decided against it. "Why didn't you send Hikaru down this one too?"
"Because he was going to drive us both crazy if I didn't give him something risky to do," she told him. "Come on." she started walking again and he followed her down a series of coridors.
Eventually she stopped next to a single basement window. There were other windows nearby that had been bricked over, a few had bars across them too. This seemed to be the only window with a view to the street and no barriers of any sort.
"You're sure they know about this window?" Tony asked. It was a small enough opening that they would be able to defend it fairly well.
"If they don't yet, they'll find it when you bring your suit in through there."
"Good point. Whenever you're ready," he said.
Misao took her sword from her back. "Ready."
Tony nodded and pushed the button on his watch. Only moments later his suit came crashing in through the window. It assembled around him. Less than a minute later the men in black started converging on that point. They came in through the window by twos. Tony was able to take them down without a whole lot of trouble but he had been worried from the beginning that he might not be able to protect Misao against so many. She was good with her sword though and didn't need all that much protecting. A few times she had too many to fight off and he helped by blasting a couple of them away but for the most part she could take care of herself.
"I got ten in the vault!" Hikaru ran in from around the corner and joined the fray.
None of them were really aware of how much time passed. Eventually, the members of the League were all taken down, either dead or incapacitated. Hikaru took out his phone and called the police, while breathless, Misao headed back towards the elevators. Tony stepped out of his suit and followed her. She stopped in front of the employee elevator.
"This one or the other one?" she asked him.
"The other one," he said, without hesitation.
Once there, Misao shut the elevator gate behind them and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. Tony didn't break off the kiss for the entire elevator ride. They reached her father's office, the only place the elevator went, and she walked with Tony back to the main elevator.
"Thank you for all your help today," Misao said.
"I take it this means you're gonna stop ignoring my emails?" Tony asked her.
"Of course not. Ignoring your emails is the easiest way to get you to visit." she smiled.
"You could have just invited me," he pointed out.
"Maybe, but that wouldn't have been as much fun."
Tony got onto the plane to head home and decided that this was the best trip to Japan he'd had so far. Definitely the best.