If Helga G Pataki could be summarized in one word, it would be "Futurist." It was also accurate to say that she could be summed up as, "Grumpy" or "Arrogant", or even "Angry". Once, her high school teacher had described her as, "Narcissistic to the point of angry arrogance." She did like that one, had that report framed in her workshop to prove a point. Hah. Take that.
Right here and right now though, the woman was grinning ear to ear as she made a straight dive downwards from a plane, dodging left and right to avoid the exploding fireworks, diving straight down towards the exhibition hall, which opened up its ceiling just so she could land in the typical superhero landing, fist making contact on the ground, but gentle enough so it didn't crack the floor. All while the hall was playing," Shoot to Thrill" and tons of dancers wearing variations of the suit welcoming her. It was all about showmanship, of course. The crowd went wild, of course. She always did like making an entrance.
Making sure she landed right on the panel she had designed especially for the suit, she was only assured when the panel raised out of its place to become a platform and spun around to reveal mechanical arms designed to remove parts of the armour. They removed the mask first, and Helga's face made a, "Ooh, who me?" look which definitely gathered more cheers from the cheering crowd.
All practised, of course. She had done this last night to make sure that she hit all the points, and Phoebe, her assistant who had made sure to attend every rehearsal and oversee every bit of the Pataki Expo, told her that she was doing fine, maybe cut down a little bit of the wink, might be overkill.
The final bit of the shiny suit was removed, revealing that Helga was wearing a well-tailored suit, white collar shirt unbuttoned enough to reveal that she was wearing a very strappy bra that crisscrossed over her chest in a very flattering fashion, somehow still showcasing the arc reactor nearly between her chest, and a suit jacket. Hair in a messy but chic bun, she looked surprised as a mechanical arm offered her a pair of heels that no matter what she did she just couldn't adapt to the suit.
She gave the crowd a look of, "Whoops!" as she put on the heels, saying, "Science just doesn't account for fashion, huh?" amidst cheers and laughter. Inwardly, of course, she was rolling her eyes. All of this was rehearsed. She just made it look effortless. What engineer and inventor in their right mind would prioritize fashion over the subtleties and elegant beauty of mechanical engineering and A.I.?
She was grateful to Phoebe of course, for emphasizing a point that looking good did mean that people took you seriously and also helped to bring out your own confidence, making sure that Helga was comfortable in the clothes picked out. Persuading Helga to try on the heels just because it made her look taller and therefore more imposing in the crowd when giving the keynote speech was a nice touch, and Helga was grateful than ever that Phoebe did so. Yet she felt that every single bit of what was going on was just trifling and bothersome. Right now, she could be at home, playing fetch with NO- DOY and the other mechanical arms and ordering in mushu pork instead of this shallow gathering of fans and the greatest minds of their generation. She was getting a little weary, but at the same time, she was unwilling to give up the cheers sometimes. It fuelled her ego. Hey, get it where you can, right?
She raised a hand to applaud the dancers as Shoot To Thrill finished playing and the dancers took a bow, and the applause was deafening. She could get used to this. She waited for the applause to die down just a little, and then she started on her speech, one that she worked hard all week to just get right and perform just so it looked effortless.
It was never effortless, of course. It was all practice, work, and stubbornness to get things right.
That's how she was a superhero after all. It took hard work to make things look good and it took years of practice to make it seem like she didn't care at all, and it was her tenacity that made her unable to let go of things until everything worked perfectly.
Helga Pataki didn't actually choose to be the Iron Lady, but hey, when you've been held hostage in a cave alongside the Ten Rings that have seized your own weapons to attack other villages for a few months while a scientist worked on your heart to make sure you stayed alive due to shrapnel caught in your chest that had to be fixed with what seemed to be in a car battery in your heart, it changed a few things.
For one thing: she doubted she could wear low cut dresses anymore.
For another, people were actually using Pataki tech to attack villages nearby the areas where the terrorist cell was operating. You had to do something when stuff happened like that. No matter how dastardly she was, even she had standards. Shutting down the weapons department of Pataki Corporation made sense.
The other people disagreed. Stock prices plummeted. Newsmakers called her a chump and too easily led by her emotions. Investors threatened to leave. Patty, over in the army, tried to persuade her to change her mind, but when she didn't, Patty left, dismayed, but silently proud of her best friend. If she was this determined by something, Helga could most definitely change the world.
Sure, creating a metal suit that could shoot pulses of light, sound or whatever she chose and wearing it to stage an ad-hoc attack on terrorist cells and retrieve stolen tech was not something Patty was expecting but hey, Lt Patricia Smith was someone who could roll with the punches when possible, and when you deal with Helga Pataki, sometimes the punches were literal.
The newspapers were ecstatic and when they found out after the Iron Monger attack that Pataki technology had something to do with the red and gold figure that flew through the sky, especially since there had been a huge showdown on Pataki Tech property, they wanted statements. Helga was supposed to claim that everything was alright, that Iron Man was a bodyguard employed to protect Ms Pataki since the kidnapping incident, and that the armour was designed by Pataki Corporation, and that was all the responsibility Pataki Corp had.
Instead, she went on the offensive. She happily took questions, insulted the reporters that insinuated that she was weak after the terrorist ring attack, and then, in a fit of anger to a reporter's insinuation that she was using tricks in an effort to cover up the fact that she was incompetent and bad at her job running Pataki Corp, she declared that she herself was the one piloting the armour, and, "FYI, it ain't Iron Man. Tricks are for kids, I'm a lady, so fuck you."
The media loved that. She was declared a feminist icon, her armour was redubbed the Iron Lady, and she became the world's most famous, and most out there, superhero.
Hey, if she had to have her secrets revealed, at least she did it her way and with thunderous applause in the background.
That stunt cost her dearly, of course.
"What the hell are you thinking?" yelled Johanssen, who waved a bunch of files in her face. "Revealing yourself like that? Are you crazy? Are you that self-centred?"
She raised an eyebrow. "No doy, Johanssen. Weren't you just an operative in some bureaucratic society of the sky or something? I was under the impression you worked for someone, Tall-Hair."
"Me!" he yelled, "I worked for me! I'm the head of the organization of the bureaucratic society of the sky- stop calling it that!"
She raised her other eyebrow mockingly. "Man, Johanssen, if it weren't for the fact that I've seen you wear a suit and pretend to be all nice and demure and try to flirt with my PA, I would be more intimidated by this get up you have on. What is this, your pleather S&M fantasy?" she studied him from head to toe. "If Rihanna needed an extra in that music video of hers, you should have called me, I have contacts- "
"Fuck you all the way to hell, Pataki." Johanssen snarled. "You're lucky there's a hell load of great PR with what you've done, destroying Ludwig like that, and managing to root out the corporate spies working for Ludwig and all and restoring peace in the world from terrorism. You're very lucky that your PR team, headed by your very talented assistant, is managing to spin the event as self-defence and that the media loves you now. But put one more step out of the line-"
Helga widened her eyes. "You'll spank me, Mr Johanssen?" she said in a mock baby-ish voice.
"Stop being a brat, Pataki." The man snapped back. "And it's Director. Director Johanssen." He sat down on the table, resigned. "We are very lucky, Pataki, "he said. "But you gotta learn how to trust sometimes, and be confident that we have your back."
Helga stood up to leave. As she left, she tossed him something to think about. "I trusted someone once. He nearly got me and my best friend killed and tried to destroy my company, and you and I are here telling me that I'm screwed up because I don't trust anyone?" She snorted. "Call me when you have a better proposal to go with, or if you're planning to propose to Phoebe. Either way, I'm not doing what you want me to do, Director."
She finished her speech to more thunderous applause, and after declaring the Expo opened, she went backstage, taking out a small device to measure her blood toxicity levels.
25%. She sighed. It was 22% an hour ago. The poisoning must be spreading faster.
She had to do something soon, but then again, what else could she do? She had spent night after night in the labs and workshops searching for a cure, but the faster she kept burning through the palladium cores, the faster the toxicity of the element powering the arc reactors was coursing through her bloodstream. She could be dead soon. Maybe in a week, maybe a month. Maybe two. She wasn't sure.
She wondered what her father would say if he found out. She wondered how Olga would react. She was glad that her father had passed a long while ago and that Olga was somewhere in New York now living the rich, married socialite life. She wanted nothing to do with the family business, even now.
Helga hid the device in her pockets as soon as she heard Phoebe come up next to her, rattling off the next few things she had on her schedule. She made some sort of grumble that made Phoebe take pause for a minute to check on her, but she slapped her hand away and told her off, making up the excuse that her blood sugar was low and to find her a sandwich or something, fuck everything. Phoebe took that as normal and went off to search for any sort of food for her best friend and boss.
When she thought about it, she could almost laugh at the absurdity of the entire thing. Her best friend was someone she paid to listen to her, and her other best friend was someone in the military who needed to interact with her on a monthly basis to try and get something out of her.
She wondered if they would say something kind about her at her funeral.
Well, that was what happened when you had the Pataki name attached to you from birth. Everyone wanted something from her and nothing was real. Only thing that mattered was keeping up appearances and nothing else. She grabbed a glass of liquor from a table and drank to keep herself steady. A nasty voice told her to keep drinking, just like her mom did. She nearly smashed the glass in despair, but instead swallowed the last of the amber liquid, and went to meet Phoebe, who was waiting for her with a pastrami sandwich.