Title: Hazard Pay
Author: Perri Smith
Feedback: Gets you a bonus in your paycheck (perri at neon-hummingbird dot com )
Category: Movieverse. Action/adventure; drama
Spoilers: The entire movie; no comics unless I did it accidentally.
Rating: M (strong language, some violence)
Distribution: Please do not distribute or archive without permission.
Thanks to: Natmerc and Lunalibre for betareading and science geeking way above and beyond the call of duty; Dad for the strategy brainstorming and dialogue critiques; and Christina K for endless patience, fast beta reads, and constant reassurance that it didn't suck.
-0o0o0-
Part 1
The smell of cordite is heavy in the air, mixing with the chemical stink of burned wiring. Their NVDs have mostly adjusted to the cold mist and the flickering lights, but they're all on edge now. All weapons are out, searching for a target in the shadows. "Where did she go?" Barrett demands.
"Fan out, keep your eyes open. I don't want any more surprises." Their leader is Masset, a muscular black man with cold eyes and absolutely no sense of humor. What he planned as a surgical strike has become a clusterfuck of a smash-and-grab, but he can still salvage this. "Keep packing up what we found, get it out of here. We're way over schedule."
Heavy combat boots scuff and thump against the floor, crunching over broken glass and metal. Someone curses, long and profane, and something heavy crashes to the floor. "Another goddamn machine! Does everything in here fucking move?"
"Leave it, that's not what we came for. Finish loading."
"Got her! She's down here! Christ, everything's down here!"
He strides over to the pair of soldiers currently flat on the ground, groping for something through irregular openings in the floor. Before he gets there, Barrett lurches backwards with a howl, blood dripping from his hand. "The bitch spiked me!"
Masset shoves Barrett out of his way, plants the toe of his boot in Spiere's ribs to move him aside. "Prep the truck! Move!" He kneels down, well out of range of whoever's hiding below him. It only takes a moment to find her, wedged in and around what looks like pieces of a giant pair of boots. "So that's where he's hiding the big one. Finally."
The woman's eyes glare out at him defiantly, despite the darkness that must leave her mostly blind; his NVDs are working again, and he has no such disadvantage. It's a damn shame; she's pretty hot, and her torn clothing isn't hiding much. If he had some time to play, he'd sure as hell be using it.
Masset smiles at her, and she tries to squirm further away. "Thanks for showing us this little stash; Stane didn't include it in any of the briefings. Never would have found it without you."
"Go to hell," she spits back defiantly, and yeah, he definitely wishes for more time.
But he doesn't have it, and this woman has already been one hell of a lot more trouble than she's worth.
"Don't worry," he tells her as he levels his sidearm at her head, aiming in between the long falls of hair. She moves desperately, and he can't tell if she's trying to get further away or go for his throat, but she's wedged in too tightly for either. He drops his good hand below the edges of the floor to get the perfect angle. "When I get the chance? I'll be sure and tell Stark you tried."
Masset's eyes harden and his smile gets wider as his finger tightens on the trigger...
-0o0o0-
Malibu, California
45 minutes earlier
Rhodey took the turn up to the mansion at a reasonable speed; unlike the owner of the mansion, he didn't feel compelled to break the sound barrier unless he was actually in a jet. As it turned out, his self-control saved him from a nasty crash.
He pulled to a stop, staring at the heavy silver gates now blocking the driveway in confusion. They weren't that high and actually looked pretty cool, made of smooth twists and curves that blended with the house, but they hadn't been there three days ago. "What the hell?"
"Welcome, Colonel Rhodes," Jarvis's smooth voice greeted him from the growing twilight. "Please extend your hand to the biometric sensor."
"The what now?" A green light flashed on the flat panel pedestal next to his window; he shrugged and rolled the window down to palm it.
"Thank you, Colonel Rhodes. Mr. Stark is in his workshop." The heavy gates opened smoothly and Rhodey shook his head as he followed the long driveway as it curved in front of the house. Where he said hello to Happy, waiting by the Rolls, and then had to use another palm scanner to actually get in the front door. By the time he'd entered his code in the newly-replaced glass panels protecting Tony's workshop, it was almost starting to be funny.
"You might want to warn people about those gates," he said as he went through the doorway.
Tony didn't look up from his workstation, where he and Pepper were deeply involved in something on the holo display. Pepper used a light stylus to transfer a file from her laptop to join several others on the 3D image, but managed to cast a quick, and stressed, sideways smile at Rhodey in the process.
Rhodey nodded back and waited, hands in the pockets of his dress uniform slacks, looking around the workroom to see what Tony was working on. Pepper's car was parked on the garage side in front of the Bentley, for some reason; the suit was nowhere in sight, but there was a pile of something under a tarp next to the Mark II that was probably suit-related. A wide array of electronics were spread across one worktable, along with... yeah, there was the suit, or at least one red gauntlet, back on Tony's desk. Tony's mechanical henchmen were mostly still, waiting for orders.
"This guy?" Tony asked Pepper dubiously, gesturing at the new display; someone's employment record, Rhodey thought, including a company ID photo of a rabbity-looking middle-aged man. "Not exactly the criminal mastermind type."
With a few quick strokes in the air, Pepper highlighted several lines in glowing green. "He had access at the right times, and he was hired on Obadiah's recommendation. That makes me pretty suspicious right now."
Tony's mouth twisted. "Yeah, me too. He stays in the pile." A flick of his stylus sent all of the files into a virtual cabinet that popped up from the bottom of the display. "Jarvis, run this stack through the usual channels. If you can't get into something, flag it for Pepper's attention and she'll kick it to the lawyers for warrants or subpeonas or whatever. Everything else stays on the private server, access to me and Pepper only."
"Yes, sir."
Tony spun his stylus once in his fingers, staring out into space, then stuck it in a pencil holder and finally acknowledged his visitor's presence. "Hey, Rhodey. You're early."
"No, you're late," Pepper told him. "I'm sorry, Rhodey, we only had a few more files to get through tonight."
"Not that late, and I know you guys are busy. I noticed you finished installing the house security," Rhodey repeated. "Warning people about the gates would be good."
"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Tony tilted his head back to empty a glass of something light green (and probably macrobiotic and healthy as hell) that he kidded himself would offset the amazing amount of alcohol he'd probably already consumed. "The house system still needs some work," he said after he swallowed. "I'll finish it up tonight or tomorrow, then get back to the cars."
Rhodey's eyebrows lifted. He was completely in favor of Tony's recent mania for security, since the vivid memory of Tony sprawled half-dead on the floor of his own workshop wasn't going to go away any time soon, but-- "How much more can you do? This place is turning into Fort Knox."
Tony smirked. "No way; my security's better than theirs." Rhodey snorted and Pepper rolled her eyes as she closed her laptop; Tony made like he was too cool to notice. "Give me a second and we'll get out of here." He seemed to be moving pretty stiffly when he got up, and Rhodey glanced at Pepper, who shook her head slightly and pressed her lips together.
"How's he doing?" Rhodey asked once Tony had disappeared into the small bedroom in the back of the workshop, leaving a disturbing lack of banter in his wake.
Pepper sighed. "He was out again yesterday, a weapons cache in southern Iraq." Rhodey nodded; he hadn't tipped Tony to the cache, but he had quietly confirmed it. "He was thrown around a little, and he still hasn't really recovered from what happened with Obadiah."
Pepper's voice caught for a moment on Stane's name; she took a deep breath to cover it and almost succeeded. "Anyway, between that--" she nodded in the direction of the suit platform, "--and all the work he's doing at the office and here at the house, I think he's just given up sleep."
"I hear that." Rhodey gestured towards the holo display. "How is the mole hunt going?"
"We think we've found Obadiah's main accomplices in Shipping and Manufacturing, but we haven't nailed down who was keeping the other sets of books in Accounting. We need to deal with a lot of areas Obadiah oversaw himself, so..." Pepper shrugged uncomfortably. "It's taking time."
"Yeah." Rhodey put a hand on her shoulder, a little bothered by how fragile the bones felt under his palm. "You know, Tony's not the only one who should maybe be getting some more sleep."
Pepper smiled and stood, dislodging his hand gracefully. "I'm fine, Rhodey. Just try not to let him drink too much after the meeting, okay? Or before it."
"Yeah, because I'm usually really successful at that."
Pepper's expression acknowledged the impossibility of her request. "Do your best."
Tony reappeared with a shiny, dark blue tie in place against his electric blue button-down shirt, shrugging into a navy suit jacket that probably cost more than Rhodey's entire civilian wardrobe. He ran one hand carelessly through his hair as he spoke to the air. "Jarvis, shut down the holo but keep running the files and have some specs ready for me on the new project when I get back. You staying much longer?" he asked his actual live assistant.
"A little while," Pepper said, gathering up her laptop and the stack of hardcopy files that had been spread around her. "I want to finish going over the factory damage reports; Legal has meetings with most of the state of California tomorrow. And so do you."
"Awesome. Get me out of them. Call Happy to take you home when you're done here."
"Thank you, Tony, but that's still not necessary," Pepper said, gesturing over her shoulder at her Audi. "You haven't started on the engine yet and I'm perfectly capable of driving myself--"
"Capable, yes; allowed, no, not until I've finished the mods to your car. Are we seriously going to have this fight again? I pay Hogan to drive people around; right now, 'people' includes you." He pointed abruptly at Rhodey. "Don't sulk; your car's next."
"I wasn't sulking," Rhodey denied, "and you can still do whatever you want to my car." Because he'd seen what Tony's cars could do, and had no objection to getting himself some of that action.
Pepper, on the other hand, still looked pissed. "Happy is supposed to be driving you tonight. It's ridiculous for him to make multiple round trips when I can--"
"It is never ridiculous for Hogan to do something I pay him extremely well to do, especially when that something is designed to keep you as safe as possible." Rhodey recognized Tony's tone; this was one of the rare arguments Pepper was not going to be allowed to win. "Call him when you leave."
Pepper knew it, too; her lips pressed flat again, and her voice got very controlled. "Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"
"That will be all, Miss Potts," Tony returned. Their routine finished, Pepper led the way up the stairs, her heels clicking sharply in as much of a huff as Pepper ever showed. She settled down in her usual chair in the living room without a backwards glance, even when Tony tossed a deliberately annoying "Don't wait up," over his shoulder as they went past her.
Rhodey just kept his damn mouth shut and followed Tony outside to the Rolls.
-0o0o0-
TBC
