[Hi everyone. I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this out. In apology, this chapter is exceedingly long. I hope that it meets your expectations. Enjoy!]
Trickster
Chapter 4
Whisper Trail
[24 miles south of Vang Vieng, Laos]
Phil Coulson surveyed the location from his perch above it. The bowl, as they'd been calling it, was a natural formation, not a crater caused by the impact of falling debris or, say, a gamma-infused interdimensional energy cow an alien god had taken from them nearly a year previous. ("Absolutely not a crater," he had been assured by the local meteorological expert, a gnarled old man whose meteorological credentials included Having Lived In the Area For Quite Some Time and My Goats Love This Area Of Scrabblegrass Best.)
Their search for the object that had somehow come to earth couldn't be classified a failure. Not yet. He'd only been there a week, afterall, and the advance team had been there for two. He'd have to keep hunting down the elusive gamma trail for another two weeks at least before he could sign off on the paperwork that declared Site F a non-starter. When he wasn't personally overseeing the sifting of the bowl's contents - an old burial site, perhaps, filled with bones and ceremonial artifacts - he spent his time gathering anecdotal evidence from the locals.
"So," he said, and the translator started jabbering away, and the junior agent at Phil's elbow started taking notes, and it was altogether less interesting than virtually anything else in the world. Goats, dirt, blue waters, magnificent cave formations. He didn't mind it at all, as a lifestyle, but it wasn't a helicarrier and a modest, clean suit and a prim assortment of documents neatly filled in and a range and a target full of precision shots. It wasn't working toward the betterment of mankind or the protection of earth or the gathering of forces or taking a stand or losing his life.
His phone binged. The translator stopped mid-stream and put a hand to his pocket. The goat-herder startled, and then put his hand into his pocket.
"It's me," Phil said, and the other two grumbled and put their own phones away. "Coulson."
"You're being recalled."
"Yes, sir," Phil replied, running scenarios. His first thought was, as usual, that Stark had finally gone rogue. Reports from the sector often enough included detailed accounts of Stark being a reckless yahoo, and more often than he liked included public arguments between Captain America and Ironman - but going there was more habit than real worry anymore, if it ever was. No, Mr Stark - Tony - had earned his trust, mostly by having been responsible for Phil's continued alive status, but more generally by being the victim of an incredible amount of blame-laying and still coming out smiling and making sarcastic remarks. It'd take something monumental to turn Stark.
Something like a tragedy befalling another Avenger, or god forbid, Ms. Potts.
"Additional information?" he requested.
"Whisper trail, Agent."
Fine. Hush hush was right in his wheel house. "I've gotta go," he said to the translator. "Thank you for your cooperation." He bowed to the herdsman, turned on his heel and stopped only a moment in the HQ tent to give some final instructions before meeting the helicopter that was already landing.
[Unknown location]
Tony woke up and immediately suppressed a groan. He hadn't even opened his eyes yet and already he could tell that he wasn't just passed out on the floor. For one, he didn't feel hung over enough for that. For another, and wasn't that weird, nothing smelled right. Earthy, woody, dirt, shitty cologne - where there should have been either motor oil, electric burn, acrid smoke from a welding torch, or hey, linen soft vaguely floral divinely clean Pepper smell. No, earthy woody dirty cheap man wasn't anywhere on his list of Places He Might Sometimes Wake Up.
And whoops, okay, that was a strange sense of cold right in the middle of his chest, a lightness he hadn't felt since - well, he felt it a lot, and now he recognized it and well shit.
Before he opened his eyes, he did some practical calculations. Without the arc reactor keeping things going apace - ha ha - he had little time. He did this math every morning, had done it ever since Yinsen had explained the details, since he had to start counting the seconds between changeovers when the palladium cores wore themselves out. The math always came out right, and usually he considered his reactor-less time a reason to celebrate. Started at a week, then became six days twenty three hours, and so on, whittled away by traitors and bad cores or what have you. Always enough time to concoct a new fix, with his track record of pulling off miracles. The light trying to pour through his eyelids told him he'd already lost a day. Goddammit, a whole goddamn day.
Tony opened his eyes, finally.
"Huh." What he saw cheered him, if only sort of and in a "but what the fff-" kind of way. "This is the creepiest game of 'This is Your Life' ever," he muttered, grasping the wires hooked into the baseplate of the casing his arc reactor was supposed to fit into. He willed his heart to slow down and followed the wiring with his gaze and fumbling fingers to a car battery, nice and familiar.
"Well shit-"
"Like it?"
Tony looked up, viscerally disgusted. "What do you want, Hammer?"
[Stark Airfield, just outside New York City, NY]
Five and a half hours after stepping onto the jet, Pepper Potts stepped off with Happy at her heels carrying her overnight bag and laptop. Happy already had his hand up, gesturing sharply at his own assistant who'd pulled the car in for them. The kid pulled to a screeching stop, having apparently surmised the haste of the situation, and was pulling open the trunk by the time they reached him. He took the bags from Happy while Happy got the door for Pepper, and only had time to say, "Ma'am, you should know-" before Pepper froze, mid-seating herself. She eased into the seat with grace, and then said, "Excuse me. SHIELD, right?"
"How could you tell?" the junior agent asked. "It's the suit, isn't it?"
"Yep." Pepper looked out of the window, fiddling with her phone. Still no text from Tony, no word from Natalie. She shook her head in wonder. "If you people are involved in this-" she started, under her breath, but he heard her anyway.
"I assure you, ma'am, we're just as concerned as you are."
She put her phone down and looked at him as Happy got into the front. "I want you to tell me everything you know - Happy, SHIELD HQ. Right?" she asked.
The junior agent nodded with an awkward smile. "That's right."
Pepper waited. "Well? Everything you know. Right now."
"That's ah... Well. Someone else will be able to explain when we get there," he said.
He was holding back. She knew when someone was lying, and this guy was lying. But he looked like he was about to wet himself just sitting next to her and she just thought, oh please and turned to face front. She wanted to be pacing, she wanted to be striding purposefully, but instead she was sitting, hands in her lap cradling her phone that might at any moment bing with a message from Tony laughing at everyone for getting so worried.
Happy opened the car door for Pepper outside the unassuming entrance to SHIELD HQ, and when he handed her the laptop case, she put a hand on his arm and leaned in. "Maybe take a look around the tower," she murmured.
Happy glanced over the roof of the car at the agent who was waiting to escort her. "You sure?"
Pepper nodded. "I'm sure."
"You're the boss."
The junior agent led her, joined by three other agents, through the non-descript outer offices into the tunnels. With her clearance, she'd been through the tunnels, but only just. Enough to be allowed into the infirmary on those not-as-rare-as-she'd-like occasions Tony'd been hurt beyond a little banged up. The agents swept her right past where they'd have normally turned off toward the infirmary and she breathed a little sigh of relief. The walls got more and more white and institutional the further they went, and she was getting more and more worried about what that foretold. Higher security hospital? Prison? Had they found him? Had he... done something? The junior agent stopped in front of a room with a table and chair in it, with a mirror along one side - a two-way mirror, she was certain - but it was empty, so Tony hadn't been arrested.
The junior agent opened the door and gestured her into it. But he didn't follow her, instead closed the door behind her and locked it from the outside.
What in the-
"Ms. Potts," said a voice. The lights went on in the adjoining room and the mirror went transparent. On the other side of the glass sat Director Fury, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Natalie Rushman.
"Where's Tony?"
They didn't say anything, just looked at each other.
"I demand to know what's going on here," she said breathlessly. She pull the chair over to the glass but did not sit, preferring to pace.
Director Fury was the first to look her in the face. "You called Agent Romanov when Stark Tower went down-"
"Where. Is. Tony."
"He's gone," Captain Rogers said, somber.
"And you aren't looking for him because?"
"We are," Fury said. "You called Agent Romanov-"
"It was on the news."
"We know. I'd like you to tell us what you were doing at the time."
"I was on the phone with a friend. You can't possibly believe that I-"
"That friend's name?"
"What?" She looked at Natalie. "Natalie, please-"
"We're investigating all possibilities, Ms. Potts," Natalie said, not without some kindness. Natasha, Pepper suddenly remembered. Not Natalie, Natasha. An agent, and not her assistant, not the eager woman who so pleased Tony but took care of Pepper's affairs like a professional, an equal who just happened to do the things Pepper didn't have time for after becoming CEO. An agent who had been spying on her, on Tony for reasons she suspected weren't solely to determine his suitability for the Avengers Initiative.
"Estelle Brinson," Pepper said, pacing. "But I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with this. How could you even think-"
"There's a secure connection between Mr. Stark's home in Malibu and Stark Tower in New York, isn't there, Ms. Potts."
Pepper met Fury's eye. "Yes." Oh, wait. "But when I asked Jarvis to check on Tony's calendar last night, after seeing the - on the news - Jarvis said he'd lost all communications with the Tower."
"The power outage," Clint said.
"But he didn't know if Tony had gone to an event that was on his schedule - he should have known that - he should have had access to anything that happened before the outage."
"Mr. Stark never showed up to that event," Natasha said. "In fact, he never RSVPed and wasn't expected."
"Okay..." Pepper stopped, trying to calm herself and think. So he didn't go to an event he'd been invited to. That was nothing new. Maybe he'd been planning to surprise them, so he hadn't RSVPed, but then he'd gotten tied up with a project, so he didn't go anyway, and since he hadn't RSVPed, he didn't feel obligated - that was Tony all over. Augh, meaningless information. Tony always made things so difficult when he was left to his own devices. Think. She frowned. "Wait a minute. Where's Bruce?"
Fury sighed.
"He was at the tower. Is he all right?"
"He's fine, now," Natasha said. "Dr. Banner was discovered in his lab, out cold."
"What's on the security footage?" She stopped pacing and stood at the window. "There'll be footage of most of the tower, right up until the outage. We have a realtime data link that records the footage to disk-"
Natasha stepped to the side and fiddled with something on the wall. When she stepped back into view, she was overlayed by a large digital image of Bruce's lab displayed on the two-way mirror. The feed was timestamped at twenty minutes before the outage. Bruce worked alone in his lab, worked, worked, worked slower, and slower, slumped over, fell off his stool.
"Someone... took out the Hulk." Pepper blinked. "How- I mean- Is he okay?"
"He's fine. Bruce was there, but while we initially thought-"
"You initially thought," Clint said.
Pepper smiled grimly. Clint had been the first to respond to every dinner invitation Pepper had sent out. She wondered if he genuinely liked Bruce, or just felt a sort of kinship toward the Hulk who had so thoroughly thrashed the monster that had taken over Clint's mind for a short time. Probably a little of both, she thought, watching him furrow his brows at Natasha.
"Damage to the tower?" Pepper said, matter-of-fact. She liked Bruce. He was one of Tony's more trustworthy close friends. But he was still the Hulk, and while there had been only that one incident when he'd been caught off-guard during a game of poker, it had still been An Incident.
Natasha cleared her throat. "Relatively little. And not the Hulk's particular style. "
"So that would mean the - attack started before the power went out," Pepper pieced. "How could someone do that? The tower's security - I thought the outage shut down the tower's security measures. I mean, I assumed," she edited hastily. But that damage was already done; she watched them all exchange uncomfortable doubts across eyelines. She wrinkled her nose in annoyance. "So we're looking for something that could shut down the tower's security before the attack," she clarified. "I assume you attempted to hack every computer in the building?"
"We just spent the better part of ass-o'clock combing over every inch of Stark Tower," Fury confirmed. "Including any computers we could get into. Stark's was locked down, which we expected, but we were able to find the piece of code that shut down the tower's defenses."
"A virus. But that's impossible. Did you manage to trace the origins? There's a backdoor-"
"Miss Potts," Captain Rogers said, obviously trying to calm her. If he hadn't been so blond and earnest about it, she might have been a little more annoyed. "We did find a-" He flicked a glance toward Fury, then continued. "-A virus, traced it back to your computer. Apparently we can do that," he added under his breath, and Pepper laughed a short burst of exasperation.
"He's right," Natasha said, not at all amused. "We're going to get to the bottom of this, but until then-"
"How are you getting to the bottom of it when you're wasting time here with me?" Pepper dug into her laptop bag and pulled out a USB drive. "I just spent the entire flight collating everything I know about last night, Tony's usual haunts, a very long list of his enemies. Look through it. Memorize it. Dig into my personal life if you feel you must, comb through the list of known associates of mine that I know you have despite never having asked me for, but do it at lightning speed." She got up and stalked the two-way mirror. "You don't know all that we've been through together," she said. "So maybe I can't expect you to understand the lengths I would go to to keep Tony safe. Find him. Do it now. If he has been harmed because of the time you've wasted arresting the only one of us here who cares whether he's alive, so help me, you'll come to understand those lengths in great detail."
[Stark Tower, New York City, NY]
Bruce snorted to wakefulness in his own bed, fully clothed. Oh no. No no no oh. Oh, wait. He dragged a hand up to his chest. His shirt was... completely intact. Pinned to it, a note:
Stay calm. Everything's okay. -N
Stay calm. Everything's okay? Why wouldn't everything be okay? What had happened? He sat up, scenarios whirling through his head. In every one of them, he'd hulked, hurt people, someone had redressed him and put him into bed as a kindness. N had to be Natasha. She wasn't overly kind to him, but she wasn't cruel, and she more than the others had seen just what happened to him when the Other Guy showed his face. Not the aftermath, no, everyone had seen that, but the transformation. The utter loss of control of himself, and he thought he occasionally saw pity in her eyes.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked at the clock. There was no way it was 5 am. He looked at his watch. A two hour difference. And the alarm clock was blinking -
A power outage. At the tower? Bruce got up to go to the bathroom, shave, shower - try to do normal things while he processed. Tony had said the reactor would run itself for about a year. Maybe his math had been off.
Tony's math was never off.
Maybe something had disrupted the current, maybe it hadn't been the reactor's fault, maybe it hadn't been Tony's. Maybe a bad storm, or a natural disaster, or maybe a huge green monster - He popped his head out of the shower.
"Jarvis? You up?"
"Yes, Dr. Banner. It's good to see you up and about."
"Uh, thanks. We lose power last night?"
"For some time," Jarvis replied. "I'm afraid I have no knowledge of why, although I can say that before I was able to reboot properly and lock down the tower's defenses, SHIELD Agents had been searching the tower. And..."
Jarvis seemed hesitant.
"And what?" Bruce's first thoughts were of the unsavory possibilities of any government branch poking around where he lived, but they'd left him alone in his bed after the appearance of the Other guy, so - "Jarvis, did I hurt anyone?"
"Unfortunately, I cannot say."
Bruce's heart sank. "Did I cause the power outage?"
"I don't know that, either, sir."
Bruce frowned. "Then... what?"
"Mr. Stark is missing."
"Missing? Are you sure?" Bruce stepped out of the shower altogether and didn't even bother drying off before he hurried into fresh clothes. "I mean it's a big building."
"He is nowhere in Stark Tower, I'm afraid," Jarvis said.
"Not flying around-"
"No, sir."
Bruce cursed and grabbed his shoes. When he put his hand on the doorknob, Jarvis stopped him with: "There are two agents waiting outside the door to escort you to SHIELD Headquarters."
Bruce's shoulders sagged, but that had been where he was headed anyway, so - "Thanks, Jarvis. I'll let you know what I find out."
"Thank you, sir."
The SHIELD agents were the generic sort. He'd been hoping for Clint and Natasha, but generics would do so long as they didn't try anything funny. They didn't so much as look at him, kept their hands off their pistols and walked him from the elevator to a waiting car and then into HQ without saying a word. They probably didn't know anything Bruce wanted to ask anyway. One of them smiled a little when Bruce tried to joke with her, but she just looked out the window again.
"So where are we going?" Bruce finally asked when they were deep in the bowels of HQ. It was distressingly familiar - prison-white and hopelessly pristine. "Am I being arrested? Because that won't end well."
"No," the woman who'd smiled at him in the car said. "Just here." She directed him toward an open door, and when he stepped in, it was just in time to hear Pepper's voice through an intercom say:
"If he has been harmed because of the time you've wasted arresting the only one of us here who cares whether he's alive, so help me, you'll come to understand those lengths in great detail."
"Uh oh," Bruce said, stepping into the room. Clint, Nat, Captain, and Fury all looked like they'd rather be anywhere else, and Clint and Rogers looked like they were about to pee themselves. And no wonder. Pepper, on the other side of a two-way mirror in what must have been a locked room, stood at the glass, cold as ice and as serious as a really serious thing. When she looked over at him, presumably because he'd entered the room, he said, "I had nothing to do with this, I swear." He frowned at the people on his side of the glass. "So... I guess you guys know Tony's missing, right?"
"We know," Clint said.
"So in an effort to find him, you what? Arrested Pepper?"
"We're following the evidence where it leads," Fury said.
Bruce frowned. "How reliable," he said, leaning forward on the table.
"Doctor?" Natasha murmured.
"He's fine," Pepper snapped. "But you're going to see me get angry if you don't leave that room this instant and find Tony."
"She's right, I'm fine," Bruce said, craning his neck to pop it. Even as he said it, he could feel the angry thrum under his skin. "But you probably should go anyway." He nodded at Pepper. "You wouldn't like her when she's angry."
They did go, and Bruce pulled a chair over to the glass to sit, massaging his headache. "So, I suppose there's some 'evidence' that places you what, at the scene?"
"A virus traced to my computer. Bruce, are you really okay?" She sat across from him, anger replaced fully by worry, for him, for Tony.
"Yeah. I just woke up in my bed. I don't know-"
"Security footage shows you just slowly passing out. It must have been a gas or something, through the ventilation."
"Slow enough that it didn't startle him into action," Bruce finished. "Well, I'll be damned."
"Someone knows how you work," Pepper said seriously.
"The same someone who knows how to link a virus back to your computer." They were both quiet a moment.
"What'd Jarvis say about it?"
Bruce sighed. "He didn't know anything - offline during the whole thing, I guess."
"Jarvis is never offline, just occasionally blinded," Pepper said. "He was plenty frantic in Malibu about that."
"That's frantic?" Bruce marvelled, remembering the sirs and I'm afraids delivered in an emotionless fashion he had attributed to being a robot. "He really is British."
Pepper snorted, and Bruce smiled. It was painful to see her so worked up, angry. It'd been a joke, but she even frightened himwhen she was on a tear. "Anyway, he did say that Tony wasn't in the tower. Not anywhere, lying somewhere unconscious or holed up somewhere laughing at us all. And not flying around in that tin can of his, either. I asked."
Pepper was quiet, lips pursed in thought. "Wait," she said. "Fury said that Tony's computer was locked down."
"Yeah?"
"Well, my computer uses the same security protocols Tony's does. How were they able to trace anything to my computer and not be able to get into Tony's at all?"
"You think you're being framed? By who?" He glanced up at the security camera in the corner that was undoubtedly recording their every word.
Pepper shrugged. "What's easier to believe, Bruce? That I would ever hurt Tony, or that SHIELD, with its secret weapons projects and questionable morals would sacrifice him for some - greater good?"
"What - greater good? Come on, Pepper, think."
"I am thinking, Bruce. I'm thinking, what could shut the Tower down when I know it has reserves for at least three more months? I'm thinking, who knows exactly how to take out a structure that isn't on the grid, how to take out everything that keeps Tony safe, everything that keeps him alive, and who has the resources to do that? I'm thinking, who has a file on Tony that outlines all the ways in which he could become a threat to national security? I'm thinking, who has a plan in place to stop him if he ever went rogue, Bruce? Who has all of that?"
Bruce was quiet a moment. "A large scale EMP device," he said quietly. "Which he'd have been protected from if he'd been in the latest iteration of the suit."
"SHIELD would know if he was on a mission. That time of night? He'd only be in the suit if he was testing, or if he was joyriding. But no one really thinks that SHIELD is leaving any of us our privacy. Tony knows they have bugs and little cameras. He just doesn't care."
"You think they have cameras?" Bruce wondered. Then he shook his head. "Wait. Wait. We're going way too far down this rabbit hole. You know I'm the last person to trust SHIELD, but I don't think they did this. The Avengers are the best asset they have. They'd have to know that none of us would work for them again if they went after one of us."
Pepper frowned. "I don't know. Clint and Natasha-"
"Are company guys. I know. But I think you'd be surprised by them. Their loyalties have only ever been with parties of their choosing. I think they'd choose Tony, as long as he hadn't totally supernovaed."
Pepper smiled wanly. "And Rogers?" she asked. "Any smooth-talking you want to do about him?"
Bruce frowned, hurt. "I'm not smooth-talking you, Pepper. I can barely smooth-talk myself."
She was quiet, staring at him.
Bruce sighed, thinking. "I don't know about Steve," he said. "He's nice to me. He's polite. He's a good leader. I know he and Tony bump heads, but he's team-loyal, especially after finding out about SHIELD's little Hydra secret. I think even if Tony had supernovaed, Steve would be there to at least try to pull him back from the brink. And Tony hasn't. No one thinks he has. He's been taken, and we're on his side. Your side. You have to believe that."
Pepper pursed her lips in that attractive doubtful pout she had. "I have survived too many years with Tony to be so naive, Bruce. But I want to believe that." She smiled, and it reached her eyes. "I believe it about you."
Bruce shrugged, grinning. "Hey, it's a start."
"I know you have Tony's back," she said, a little sad. "You both know what it's like to be betrayed. To have everyone doubt the goodness of your heart. I'm not putting my trust in them, not yet. I'm putting it in you. Okay?"
Bruce shook his head. "I appreciate the vote of confidence. I trust them, but I promise I'll keep an eye out. Pepper. At the end of this, when Tony's back and safe, I hope you'll consider trusting the others. We'll figure it out. They care about Tony more than you know. Probably more than theyrealize."
Pepper sighed raggedly. "I hope you're right. Just remind them - he's not as indestructible as he likes to say he is. Okay?"
[Outside SHIELD Headquarters, New York City, NY]
"That bastard," Clint said. "How can a man like Stark vanish into thin air?" He frowned as Captain Rogers strode past him. "Wait, where are you going?" What happened to having a plan?"
"I have a plan," Steve said without stopping.
Clint shared a look with Natasha before quickstepping to join him on either side.
"Cap?" Nat said.
"I'm not going to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while a teammate is in trouble."
Clint snorted. "Got to you, did she?"
"She's right," Rogers said. "She thought through in ten minutes what it took us four hours to figure out. All we could do was sit and talk. We have no leads."
Rogers frustrated wasn't a pretty sight. Clint tried to be soothing, but uh, it wasn't exactly his strong suit. "So we're..."
"Going to get some. There has to be something in that tower that-"
"Heads up," Natasha said, just as the sky went dark and thunder rolled through the atmosphere. The wind kicked up, the sky twisted into color and plume, and then Thor crashed into the pavement before them. The sky cleared as he stood.
"My friends!" The Asgardian dude beamed from ear to ear, arms out in greeting.
"About time," Natasha said, pressing ahead past him. "We called for you hours ago."
Thor's smiled faded as he turned to follow. Clint shrugged in sympathy. "My apologies," Thor began. "There was-"
"It's fine," she said, waving off his excuse. "Now that you're here, we can get you up to speed."
"Tony's missing," Clint pushed in. "We have no clues, nothing. Pepper's under arrest-"
Thor frowned. "Pepper Potts has been imprisoned? But she is a loyal companion to Tony Stark. I do not believe she could be involved in anything nefarious."
"Yeah..." Clint said, "neither do we."
Natasha gave him a look.
He shrugged. "Do we?"
"No," Rogers said, "we don't. But until we have another lead..."
Thor laid a heavy hand on Rogers' shoulder. "We will find him. You are about to acquire one of these 'leads'?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Then we will go and obtain it. Perhaps when we have found Tony Stark, you will assist me in a task."
Natasha frowned. "What task?"
"My brother has fled to Midgard and I fear he is in grave danger."
The entire party, save Thor, halted on the spot. Thor continued apace for a moment before he turned, apparently only just realizing
Clint gaped. "Please tell me you have another brother."
"Loki's here?" Natasha growled. She whirled on the spot, back toward HQ. Clint and Rogers hurried after her, and Thor was quick on their heels.
"My friends," he called. "Must we not collect one of these 'leads'?"
"We just got one," Natasha snapped, already on her phone. "Director, Potts needs to be isolated, immediately. We're on our way back."
[Unknown location]
"I don't really do nostalgia," Tony replied, sitting up. He cataloged the room in an instant: dirty empty walls, non-electronic door locks, grates over the overhead lighting, which was recessed into the ceiling and well out of reach. Not a lot to work with. He looked back at Hammer. "Where is it?"
"You mean, the little gadget that keeps you alive?" Justin Hammer grinned. "It's safe. But we wouldn't want you to get any ideas about escaping or killing people or sending a message to those little friends of yours."
"Wouldn't want that," Tony muttered, grabbing onto the battery and pulling it toward him. The weight of it recalled a month of habit, before he'd gotten irritated enough to forge new breakthroughs in arc reactor technology. "So what do you want? Finally get sick of making stuff that doesn't work?" He arched a brow disapprovingly. "Don't tell me you need a loan."
"Oh, no," Hammer said, idling toward him. "Nothing like that."
Tony frowned and put his hands onto the ground to lever himself up. Immediately, two goons stepped out of the shadows behind Hammer.
"I wouldn't."
Tony slumped back to the ground and laughed. "You kidnapped me to make me sit in the corner? If I say I learned my lesson, do I get to go back to the other kids?" One of the goons had a taped up nose; oh yeah, right. He remembered something about headbutting some guy in the face - before the terrible crushing pain in his chest and the popping lights in his vision and the lingering thought that Pepper would be so pissed that he'd spilled his smoothie all over the floor.
"Don't be like that, Anthony. We're all friends here. Really. You just sit and relax."
"Oh, I'm relaxed. You seem a little tense." Tony narrowed his eyes, trying to puzzle out the plot. What he had was money and genius. If Hammer didn't want either, then maybe... maybe it was just revenge. Wonderful. "Anyone else want a drink?"
"Oh, sure," Hammer said. "We'll just have a drink. Oh, wait. No, I don't think we will. See, I do want something from you." He crouched in front of Tony and pressed his fingertips into Tony's temples, giving him a good shake. "I want that big brain of yours to do something for me."
Tony twisted out of his grasp. Okay, it was his genius. "Justin Hammer needs someone to think for him. Who's surprised?" He looked up at the goons. "You? Maybe you? No?" He looked back at Hammer, smiling grimly. "No one's surprised, buddy. You know you could have just Facebook messaged me. Or don't they have Facebook in prison."
"Guys like you and me don't stay in prison, Anthony. You know that. We're a different breed. We ought to have been partners, but you just had to go it alone. Throw your company's best assets in the gutter, embrace the... liberal agenda."
Unbidden, Pepper's unamused face came to mind - specifically that moment when he'd told her, lied flat out, that he'd gotten bored of the liberal agenda. It was a last ditch effort to persuade her to take his company because he was dying and he needed someone he trusted to take it in the direction he wanted it to go. But the look on her face still made him feel like a disappointment.
"But we've always been men of war, men of action," Hammer continued. "That's still in you, somewhere."
"Hey. The point. Let's find it, shall we? Also: fire your monologuing coach. Waste of time."
Hammer grinned at him, like a … not a shark, not a wolf. No, those things were smart enough to kill their enemies. Hammer grinned like he knew he was in a room with a thing that could kill him, but thought he'd figured out how to tame the beast. He snapped his fingers and stood, and the goon with the broken nose slapped a sheaf of paper into his hand.
"I want you to do some math for me."
Tony blinked. "Some... math?"
"Yeah. You know I've always been a big picture guy, broad strokes, grand concepts. I don't bother with the trivial-"
"Math?" Tony repeated. He laughed, resting back against the wall behind him and shaking his head. "Yeah, we're done here. I gotta say, this is possibly the most underwhelming kidnapping I've ever heard of. Hammer, F minus for cheating - you know Mr Schultz knows my handwriting. You guys can have Cs because I can see you tried. Reactor. Now. Give." He held out his hand, like he was persuading a dog to give up a ball. "Giiiive."
"We'll see. Math first. I've got reams and reams of numbers that I can't seem to get to come out. But see, I need these numbers to come out."
"Okay," Tony said lightly. "I'll need a computer, and-"
Hammer laughed. "Yeah. Right. I picked you because you can do this in your head. No computer needed. I know your story, Anthony. I barely trust you with that thing-" He gestured at the battery. "Heck, you might not even get a pencil." He thought a moment. "Yeah, you know what? No pencil."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Listen, if you need a math lesson, I know some good tutors. You remember you're supposed to carry the tens, right?"
"Carry the tens," Hammer repeated, chuckling. "That's good." He tossed the sheaf of paper to the ground at Tony's feet.
Tony looked down at it and didn't move. "Yeah," he drawled, looking back up at Hammer. He recited: "I'm not doing anything for you, or any shady organization you work for, math or otherwise, ever. I just don't know how I can be more clear about this."
"Tsk. Have it your way. Guys?"
The goons came forward. A few minutes later, Tony was gasping on the ground, bleeding from the nose and a split lip. He had some experience in the hand-to-hand - Happy, some mixed martial arts class he took once, and of course the whole superhero thing. But he was carrying a car battery and had to take care not to let anything get disconnected. And he didn't want to admit it, but after the incredible thrumming power of the arc reactor, running on a car battery left him feeling like he was always ever on the verge. He could imagine those tiny shards embedded in his heart wiggling in an attempt to escape the lower powered electromagnet holding them back.
Tony pushed himself to sitting and dragged a hand across his mouth. "That it?"
"It can be. Just a little math, and you're outta here."
"Like I said, I'd need some stuff. TI-81? Come on, I could barely even program Dummy with that."
"I heard about that project," Hammer chuckled. "Gotta tell you, Dummy isn't what I'd name one of the first genuine examples of modern AI."
Tony shrugged. "Well, if you'd ever met him." He narrowed an eye at Hammer in thought. "Actually, you'd probably get along. He needs someone who can talk to him on his level." He grinned.
"Oh yeah," Hammer said, bowing a little in deference. "No question, you're the expert, the mathematician. That's why I need you."
Tony looked up at a goon. "Any word on that drink?"
"Come on, be serious."
"As a heart attack," Tony quipped.
"Funny you should mention."
Tony backed away as the goons came forward again, but they just held him down rather than try to wail on him and wrestled the battery out of his arms. He watched in horror as the one with the broken nose delicately fingered a line running under his shirt from his chest to the battery and then unwound it from the post a few turns. Tony looked at up Justin Hammer, defiant. Fine. Fine. From the corner of his eye, he saw the goon lift the wire from the post and suddenly there was a crushing squeezing pressure and sudden loss of breath.
He knew this. Obadiah. At least he could move this time. The one holding him down allowed him to press a hand to his chest, but he couldn't catch his breath, he couldn't get enough oxygen, he felt too light, dizzy, and his chest - oh -
A jolt and an internal hum and he gasped, curling in on himself, around the hole where the arc reactor should have been, around muscles that screamed for the oxygen his heart couldn't deliver fast enough. But it was beating, it was beating and he was okay. A few seconds gone from the hourglass. That's all.
"Whatdya say, Anthony? Ready to carry the tens for me, big guy?"
Tony looked up at him, pale and shaking but angry. "Screw you."
And then the hands were on him again, and he was fighting it because now he knew what was coming, but kick though he might, life support switched off again and he was dragging in air, light-headed and sick. A dull pain radiated from a point in his chest into his head and arm - classic. But everything was fine. Everything was fine. Because Hammer wasn't going to kill him, and these were just seconds from the hourglass. He crossed his arms over his chest, willing his hands to stop shaking.
"Annnnthonyyy," Hammer sang, somewhere in the distance, through a dense fog that soaked up most of the amplitude of the sound.
Tony blinked hard. He needed a plan. He needed time. He needed his heart to keep beating so he could think. He flopped a hand in Hammer's direction. Current was restored and he lurched onto his side to curl up again, trying to hang onto his lunch.
Hammer crouched next to him. "I don't want to have to keep doing this, Anthony," he purred.
Tony glared. "Yes you do," he managed.
Hammer laughed. "Can't get anything past you, can I?" he whispered. "Now how about it?"
"No." He just had to get through it. Tony'd been tortured, and this wasn't nearly so bad as being drowned. Except for the parts where he couldn't breathe and his body insisted he was about to die. At least he was dry.
Hammer stood up and looked down at him. Tony didn't bother meeting his eye. Better to look like he was willing to withstand anything rather than help him. With a growl, Hammer spun and knelt next to the battery.
Tony squeezed his eyes shut.
"Stop!"
The voice was new, but familiar, and - oh. Really?
"Justin. Might I have a word?"
Tony heard Hammer get up after a second. He opened his eyes in time to watch Hammer's shoes as he left the room. Waiting at the doorway were the legs of the newcomer, belonging to the voice Tony remembered, and he looked up into the face of Loki. Loki watched Tony for a moment, his face lit up with that insane grin, before turning to follow.
Jesus. Loki.
