"Come on, Pep, just one picture, it's all I'm asking for."
She glanced up from her work, annoyance radiating from her pristine features as she forced a renegade lock of hair behind her ear. Apparently his laid back nature about this upcoming business arrangement was beginning to grind her gears, "And I told you no, I'm working. Like you should be."
Tony shrugged, fiddling with their new prototype StarkPhone, it wouldn't even be on the market for another six months - and even then, his would be the only one in hot rod red, "Doesn't the old saying going something like, 'I'll work when I'm dead and have fun while I'm alive'?" There was a momentary quiet in the car, "Okay, I swear I heard that somewhere."
Pepper let out an exasperated sigh, and returned to her tablet, making rapid edits to his schedule for the upcoming week, already setting aside extra time in-case his trip to South Korea extended longer than planned - which considering who was sitting across from her in the car, would be a likely proposition.
"You'd be the first woman photographed by the most advanced phone on the face of the planet," Tony said, "It'll only take a second."
"You know what? If it'll make you happy, if it'll make you stop bothering me so I can get this work done, then sure, take a picture," Pepper snapped both in terms of temper and tone.
With a grin, Tony snapped a quick picture of his razzled assistant.
That'd been a week ago.
Now it felt like an eternity ago.
For Tony, locked away in the damp dungeon of some ancient castle with an all too talkative guard, he suddenly had a very good understanding of what hell his PA had to live through while working under him.
Goddamnit, if he survived this, the woman deserved a raise.
This time when Raza, Tony's guard for a roughly three hour period during the midafternoon strolled in he had a crimson object in his hands. With his nose firmly buried in the screen the terrorist nearly tripped over the stool set up for the current guard - sadly, he managed to catch himself in time to snort at the innocent piece of wood for threatening to impede his walking.
It took Tony a moment to recognize the object for what it was.
A phone.
His phone, to be precise.
Having given the stool a swift kick, Raza settled down to chuckle with amusement as he flicked at something on the screen. After a long silence with the only sound emanating from the phone's tiny speakers, from the sounds of it, Raza was engaged in an action packed game of Angry Birds.
Of course, the man with the blood of countless people on his hands would pick the game involving adorable birds.
The terrorist glanced up, having just completed another successful level for a brief moment he locked eyes with the inventor, Raza rapped his fingers off the phone's outer casing, "Y'know, this is a nice phone," he said, "This is a nice fuckin' phone."
Raza leaned in, glancing down at the phone as a sly grin contorted his face into something befitting the cheshire cat, "Now what is this? Hmmm?" The terrorist rotated the phone around so that Tony could get a good view of the screen.
It was the picture he'd snapped of Pepper in the car on the way to the fateful business trip that landed him in some castle dungeon in some part of the world situated between Jurassic Park and the ass-crack of the world. The best he could estimate, somewhere in China.
Raza continued, "Now who is this? Is this the invincible Tony Stark's latest squeeze?" The man cast a glance down at the image again, "I gotta say, she does look like she'd be quite the fuck. I mean, if she's anything like all the other women in your life, isn't that all she is, a good fuck? A pair of nice perky tits and a tight ass on legs?" Raza smirked, "I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I 'borrowed' this picture, right? My imagination isn't quite what it used to be, and I think this pretty lady would serve my needs just fine-"
For a man who'd never had to actually work a day in his life, whose only form of concentrated physical fitness was sex and sashaying around clubs looking for his next hook-up. For a man who'd only taken up Wing Chun Kung Fu just for the sake of hooking up with one of the hotties in the class, Tony Stark was never labeled the most athletic of men - or the most healthy.
But damnit, when the man felt compelled - he could move.
Before Raza could finish his sentence, before the prototype StarkPhone had slipped from his greasy fingers and clattered to the stone floor, he found himself with arms wrapped firmly around his head and a very angry Mr. Stark attached.
Raza had never had the easiest time learning English, he'd struggled with it, quite frankly - and so he strained against the man's grip, not helped by Stark's slamming his head against the metal bars while he continued to growl incoherently. For all of Raza's straining, he couldn't even tell if Stark was even speaking English at this point. Then again, with arms trying to choke the life out of him while simultaneously forcing his face into the cell bars - the meaning was rather clear cut.
This whole charade was abruptly cut short with the arrival of another individual - tall, with sharp features, and long dark hair that hung to the man's shoulders. His face was worn, like it'd see years of hardship and toil, deep lines woven into the flesh. The man neither smiled nor frowned, appearing, quite simply, indifferent. On his face he wore a beard, the kind that had seen only marginal care, slightly scraggly with the occasional hint of gray. Dressed in robes of emerald with patterns of gold adorning the surface, the man strode into the room, his feet seemingly making no sound as he walked.
In a way, he looked a bit like what a more asian version of Jesus Christ. Or at least, that's what Tony found himself drawing comparisons to. Of course, Jesus didn't have a habit of kidnapping people and leaving them in his cellar to rot while his disciples tormented their captives with hints of the people they'd left so far behind.
Tony's grip on Raza loosened, and the man took hasty steps away, "Mandarin...I..."
The Mandarin only offered Raza an aside glance, "Quiet. Remove yourself from my sight."
The Mandarin continued to advance towards Tony's holding cell while Raza made a hasty retreat from the room, a steely gaze washed over the billionaire as the Mandarin scrutinized his captive. After a long, silent moment, the Mandarin spoke, "You seem spirited enough," there was an unnatural pause, the silence biting at the room, "To be of use to me."
The Mandarin gestured to his entourage, whom seemed to materialize out of thin air, all brandishing automatic weapons and loaded down with tactical gear that no small paramilitary organization should have access to.
Stark Industries body armor wasn't up for sale to just anyone, how the hell did these guys get access to it?
The soldiers unlocked the cell, overpowered Stark's attempts at resisting, clapped manacles around his wrists, and shooed him back out to stand before the Mandarin. And without a word, the Mandarin turned on his heel and walked out the door.
Tony Stark, momentarily confused by the lack of verbal interaction soon found himself wondering who decided it'd be funny to kick him in the back of the knees and put a bag over his head.
Oh, right. The same guys who hijacked his plane and kept him pent up in a damp, moldy basement dungeon in some caste in the jungle of presumably China.
'To be of use to me' was probably just the code word for "Put a bag over Mr. Stark's head, drag him out into the bushes, and put a bullet through his brain."
Goddamnit.
Back in the United States, it'd been two long months since the 'death' of Tony Stark. And for a week or so, the world mourned the loss of an icon. But after the hubbub passed, the world shifted its gaze to other things of importance - like the city's new vigilante who'd overnight become something of an elusive media darling. Pictures of the wall crawling hero were nothing more than shaky footage captured on cell phones, or pictures that required such cropping to actually see the figure that individual pixels were visible.
And in a way, Pepper Potts was alright with this. She'd rather see headlines pertaining to a lunatic in a bug mask catapulting across the rooftops then dozens of stories going on and on about the terrible loss sustained with Tony Stark's untimely passing.
It was almost...surreal. For a man so much larger than life, to be so easily swept under the rug by the masses. But yet, every day she was reminded of him as she came into work. Everyday when she walked past the stylized letters of his last name spelled out in letters close to three feet high, every day when she found herself walking into his office, and settling into his desk behind his computer.
When they'd first suggested that she be promoted up to CEO, well, there had been a mixture of emotions.
Fear, being the primary one. To go from being the personal assistant to the CEO of Stark Industries to actually beingthe CEO of Stark Industries was a major jump in responsibilities. But the board assured her with their golden words that they would handle things, that they'd put things up to vote soon enough and elect a new head for the company.
And yet, the whole thing felt like a massive betrayal. To take projects that Tony formerly had kept a close hand and have the board bring them out, slap a new coat of paint on them and give them to her for approval. Not being the maestro of mechanics that Tony was she had to take things from face value, and try to imagine what he would do in the situation.
Would he take the whole thing back to the drawing board on account of possible faults in the design?
Yes.
Would Stark Industries be able to take the whole XR-3 series, shelve it, and fail to fulfill the promises of their contract? If Tony was around to personally oversee the project, to go up to the military brass, invite them in for drinks and explain the whole situation - and somehow get them to extend the time available to allow for revamps.
But she wasn't Tony Stark. She wasn't a genius with mechanics, she wasn't some savant when it came to technology, she wasn't the man who built his first circuit board at the age of four.
They had fought her tooth and nail when she'd even implied that the designs might be anything less than the definitive future of aerial warfare. Hell, she'd even called in Rhodey, all the way from his infinitely more important obligations just so he could take at the look at the blueprints with her.
He'd been as helpful as he could, reassured her that everything seemed squared away - and then more or less admitted that he only knew how to fly planes, not necessarily put them together. Still, his encouragement was infinitely more reassuring than the board's adamant assurance that the design was ready for production.
And so she'd signed her name on the line, and the XR-3 was ushered along.
And now this. Months of work, a planned display at the Expo - and everything ruined because a Russian decided to destroy the prototype after making a show of breaking into the main offices to run off with some of Tony's (formerly) secure files. They couldn't even trace the theft because it'd been a direct tap.
Damnit, what would Tony do?
What would Tony do? That was a joke, he'd probably just crack a joke about the whole thing and then just move on to his next pet project. 'So what if someone else managed to get a hold of our tech,' he say, 'It'll all be old news by the end of the year anyway, you worry too much, Pep.'
Damnit, what would Pepper do?
Wait, why was he asking himself that question? Was he just feeling guilty all of a sudden?
It wasn't like he had much choice. He either followed along with the Mandarin's demands to supply his goons with some fantastic new doomsday weapon and live to see another day, or he got slowly gutted like a fish for his insolence. So he'd followed along - which hadn't done him any favors with his house guest - the guy followed instructions without more than a half-hearted grunt, but his work ethic and craftsmanship was outstanding for a man likely living on starvation rations in a dank underground cellar transformed into a semi-functional workshop.
Finally, after about the...third week? It was either the third week or the fourth week - Tony honestly couldn't keep the days straight anymore - since the Mandarin had so politely moved Tony from his damp dungeon to his damp underground workshop. Eitherway, it'd been three (or four) weeks of near silent, constant, work and finally, Tony had had enough. Okay, maybe it had been three days and he was just exaggerating, but his friend had been more or less silent bar required conversation. Hell, Tony didn't even know the guy's name.
He slid his welding mask up, glancing over at his working partner. He couldn't see his 'friend's' eyes on account of his own welding goggles, but he could still catch the slight shift in the man's demeanor as he powered down the welding gear. Tony was the first to speak (obviously), "So...you got a name? Family? A dog back home?"
No response from Mr. Talkative.
"Look, if you're pissed off at me about something - just say it. Because I can't honestly spend much longer cooped up in here with you giving me the silent treatment," Tony concluded.
"Yinsen," the man says only after letting the silence fully perforate Stark, "My name is Yinsen."
"Holy shit," Tony gleams, "You do talk!"
Yinsen chuckles, "Yes, it would seem so."
"Y'know what, Mr. Yinsen?" Tony asks, rhetorically - asking is just a convenience, "I think we've made enough progress for today, let's cut things short," he pries of his heavy welding gloves, tossing them aside, "After all, Rome wasn't built in a day - and Caesar had a hell of alot more workers than just us two."
"So, you're actually going through with it," Yinsen said, "You're actually going to build him a weapon."
"Look, I'm not too sure about you, but where I come from - you don't fuck with guy running a terrorist organization," Tony answers, "And besides, even if I give him a hundred weapons, this guy isn't anything but a spec on the map. He's like a taller Kim-Jong Un, he's all bite but no teeth."
"But you're giving him the teeth," Yinsen counters.
Tony whirls around, tensing as if ready to lash out. He's known Yinsen's name for all of forty-seconds and already he's regretting encouraging conversation, "I'm giving him what he wants so I keep breathing. I've got people I want to get back to, things I still want to do with my life. If all of that's too complicated for you, then I'm sincerely sorry."
Yinsen only grunts, "And how will you be able to face them when you've traded the lives of others for your own? That's all you've done," Yinsen pauses a moment, "You'll have given the Mandarin a weapon of terror, a device that will result in nothing but death - how much is your life worth, Mr. Stark?"
Tony isn't even sure of how to respond, the words get caught in his throat and Yinsen starts riddling off numbers-
"Fifty innocent lives?"
"A hundred?"
"Two-hundred?"
"Three-hundred?"
Tony can't remember how their conversation ended, he just knows that when he lays his head down on his dirty cot he regrets every word. He thinks that he remembers Yinsen saying five hundred before he snapped at the older man, letting loose a stream of self-soothing profanity before finding his own dark corner to hole up in. In his head he rolls over the arguement over-and-over, trying to figure out someway to spin it so that his side of the fight is the right one.
Yinsen's crazy, he decides. The old man's simply gone bonkers from being down in this dingy old place and that's that. If he had any shred of rational he'd have escaped by now, or done as Tony's doing and just give the Mandarin what he wants.
At some point, Tony can hear Yinsen's light snoring from the other side of the room and he decides to get up. It's dark, but then again, it's always dark in the workshop. Pushing aside his pile of disgusting rags, Tony gives his eyes the moments they need to adjust before he gets up. He manages to find a couple scraps of paper that doesn't have specifications for a missile on it, gets his hands on a trio of pencils with semi-intact erasers and acquires a candle to work by. He spreads his paper out on the workbench, brushing aside half-assembled/half-disassembled components before going to work.
It's 1988, and at ten years old Tony's head is still spinning about the awesomeness that was Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. He sits down everyday and scribbles out plans and specifications for his own armored suits. Eventually he realizes the impracticalities of having an armor that stands almost as tall as a skyscraper and decides to try something completely different - it'll be more difficult, but he decides to try something smaller.
He'll design a suit, something that would fit a man around a man, like a suit of medieval armor. He works haphazardly at it, imagining innovations and weapons ideas for his dream armor. After a few dozen hours of work, he shows it to his father, and his old man nods, chews on his pipe and sends him on his ten-year old way with a few suggestions scrawled on the edge of the paper in tight, constrained script.
Tony takes the suggestions to heart, spending another string of afternoons redesigning the armor to the best of his ten year old ability, putting more thought into how the operator would actually move and dialed back on the aesthetics a bit in favor of more utilitarian utility. But of course, like any good knight, he'd need a good color scheme.
Bold crimson with gold trim seemed suitably heroic.
When Yinsen finally roused himself, he expected to find Stark still balled up in the corner snoring. Instead he found Anthony Stark hunched over the workbench muttering to himself and making rapid edits to a yellowed piece of rough paper.
Yinsen pauses momentarily, finding a different sheet of paper casually tossed aside on a different workbench. He picks the paper up, noting what appears to be a man in a sleek suit of armor, judging by the wispy clouds sketched behind the man and his overall body posture, he is apparently supposed to be flying.
What the hell was Stark doing, drawing a comic strip?
The inventor finally noticed that he wasn't the only person in the room who was awake, and grinned over his shoulder at Yinsen, "Oh, hey, you're up. I've got something to show you."
"If it's more cartoons, I'll - I'll pass."
"Oh, you found that," Tony says a bit sheepishly, "That's just the concept drawing. No, what I've got here," he slapped the paper he was so furiously working on moments prior, "Is something a little more...practical."
"Practical?" Yinsen asked.
Tony just nods, "Yeah, like something I could build here. Something I could get working if the Mandarin would be so kind as to pick a few things up for me. That kind of practical."
Yinsen finally wills his feet to move, standing by the bench as he adjusts his glasses, observing the much more detailed technical drawings laid out before him. The overall design was infinitely more crude than the heroic figure flying through the sky he found earlier. The armor is larger, heavier, and the faceplate looked more like an intimidating skull than anything else. And while the previous sketch was framed around a sleek figure, this new behemoth had visible external weaponry attached.
"You plan to build this?" Yinsen asked after a long moment pondering the design.
"Yeah, that's the idea," Tony concluded, "We build this, we bust out, and you quit insinuating that I'm an unfeeling asshole only out to save his own skin."
"And what about the Mandarin? What will we do about him?"
"Look, I'm not some White Knight of good, alright? I'm not the military, I don't take down terrorists for a living. If we run into the him on our way out, ask me again, and we'll see where it goes. But assuming we don't, we just focus on running like hell."