Chapter 7 - Present
"Sir, there seems to have been some increase in military activity. Fox News is reporting now."
"Pull it up."
"It was an awesome spectacle here an hour ago when over 40 C-17s lifted off of this very base. We're not told where they're going. The government is being very quiet about what is going on. They were headed directly towards North Korea." the male news reporter said.
"JARVIS, keep an eye on North Korea and the military's movements. They will give us the direction that we need to go in to find Anna… And mute." Tony said, noticing his assitant Pepper Potts coming down the stairs and to his lab talking on the phone.
"I'm going to be trying again, right now." Pepper said, walking into the lab and turning off the music that had been playing.
"Please don't turn down my music." Tony said, acting like he had been working on the engine in front of him that he was constructing.
"I'll keep you posted." Pepper said, then hung up her cell phone. "You are supposed to be halfway around the world right now."
"How'd she take it?"
"Like a champ."
"Why are you trying to hustle me out of here?"
"Your flight was scheduled to leave an hour and a half ago. "
"That's funny, I thoughth with it being my plane and all, that it would just for me to get there."
"Tony, I need to speak to you about a couple things before I get you out of the door"
"Doesn't it kind of defeat the whole purpose of having your own plane if it departs before you arrive?" He asked, turning around and wiping the oil from his hands to finally face her. Pepper didn't even pay him any mind and just stayed on task.
"Larry called. He's got another buyer for the Jackson Pollock inthe wings. Do you want it? Yes or no."
"Is it a good representation of his spring period?" Tony asked.
"Um. No. The Springs was actually the neighborhood in East Hampton where he lived and worked, not "spring" like the season."
"So?"
"I think it's a fair example. I think it's incredibly overpriced." Pepper said. Tony stared at her for a moment, considering.
"I need it. Buy it. Store it."
Tony got up and walked across his lab as Pepper began to ask him other things on her list.
"Okay. The MIT commencement speech… Is in June. Please, don't harangue me about stuff that's way, way, down…"
"They're haranguing me, so I'm gonna say yes."
"Deflect it and absorb it. Don't transmit it back to me."
Pepper could barely contain the eye roll that was threatening to break through her composure.
"I need you to sign this before you get on the plane.
"What are you trying to get rid of me for? You have plans?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"I don't like it when you have plans."
"I'm allowed to have plans on my birthday."
"It's your birthday?"
"Yes."
"I knew that. Already?"
"Yeah. Isn't that strange? It's the same day as last year."
"Get youself something nice from me."
"I already did."
"And?"
"Oh, it was very nice."
"Yeah." Tony said, smirking and nodding his head. He liked it when she was like this because she took his mind off of his missing and most likely dead sister when he needed it, even if she didn't know it.
"Very tasteful. Thank you, Mr. Stark."
"You're welcome, Miss Potts."
"Okay." Tony said, moving to grab a car and to head on his way. He assumed bbd eeing almost three hours late was enough of a delay.
He couldn't have guessed that that would be the last time he was home, that he would get any updates on any activity in regards to the attack on Qatar and on his sister for three months.
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"It's like a self-rengerating molecular armor." a man said as the five of them plus a member of the flight crew of the plane that ethey were on examined the piece of tail that had been dismembered from the robot thing during the attack.
Anna was sitting back on the bench, having just returned from showering and changing into a set of spare clothes that one of the female members onboard had given her. She had been slightly tensed since they had boarded the plane, worrying that Epps and/or Lennox had heard her use her real name to get through to the Pentagon during the attack and she was hoping that they hadn't.
"Look at the scorch mark where the sabot round hit. Melted right through." Lennox said, examining the tail under the magnifying glass. "Hey aren't sabots hot-loaded for, like, a 6,000-degree magnesium burn?"
"Close to it. It melts tank armor." Epps said.
"So this metal skin must react to extreme heat." Lennox said before all of a sudden the tail lifted by itself, causing all of them to jump back.
"Heads up!"
"Oh!" Epps cried as all of a sudden the tail went towards Epps, causing him to jerk back and avoiding the stab that the tail had been about to make in his head. "I thought you said that thing was dead, man!"
The tail uncurled back onto the table, all of them throwing their bodies over the tail as Lennox began calling orders. "Strap it down! Strap it!" after they had done so, they all just paused to catch their breath. Lennox pointed at the tail. "This thing is wicked. All right, get on the horn with Northern Command. Tell them that our effective weapon is high-heat sabot rounds. Recommend we load them on all the gunships. Go." Lennox told Epps.
Epps nodded and did as ordered.
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At sunrise they had landed at Nellis Air Force Base and had been treated before being released to head home. Home was a place that Anna hadn't had in a long, long time. But she wanted to go back. She wanted to see Tony, she wanted to reconcile with him. Lennox, Epps, and herself were walking towards the vehicle that had been issued to the three of them to share when black SUVs pulled up with a screeching halt.
The three of them looked over their shoulder to see who it was.
A man came out of one of the SUVs and ran towards them.
"Captain Lennox, we need you and your team to come with us right now! Let's go!" the man said, grabbing Lennox's bag out of his hand while other men had come to grab the rest of the team's bags to throw into one of the three SUVs.
Anna felt adrenaline rush through her veins. Something was about to happen. Something big.
They were flown in a helicoptor and taken to a familiar structure of the United States. Hoover Dam.
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The seven of them lined up and saluted the Secretary of Defense. Two men that had been on the plane with them on the way home had been assigned to their team and had been debriefed on what had happened. It was the two new guys, Wayne and Clark, followed by Ruins, then by Graham, Anna, Epps, and Lennox in the line.
"Team attention! Present arms!" Epps called out.
"At ease. Captain, Sergeant. Got your intel. Excellent work." Secretary Keller said, coming to stand in front of the two of them. Anna was silently glad that Keller couldn't fully see her face as it was hidden under her ball cap. She had met him several times when she had gone to the Pentagon with Tony and Obadiah, even her father, to learn about their military contracts before her parents had died and before she had ran away. Keller had been a stern but kind man towards her and would no doubt recognize her if he saw her face.
"Thank you, sir. What about the gunships?" their Captain responded.
"They're being retrofitted with sabot rounds now. If they hit us again, we'll be ready for them. But it won't do us much good if we can't get world communications back up."
"Mr. Secretary!" came a soldier's shout as he hurried up to them. He had just been told an urgent message from a S-7 agent who had watched an emergency news broadcast on his phone before communications had been knocked out.
"Soldier?" Sec Def Keller questioned, turning to him.
"I was just told by a S-7 agent that before communications had been cut, he had been watching an emergency broadcast about something that went down in Afghanistan."
Keller looked at the soldier puzzled. "Soldier, you do realize that we are possibly facing an alien invasion right now, correct?"
"Yes, sir. But I thought you might like to know that Tony Stark's convoy had been attacked and he has been presumed missing, and some are saying even dead."
Keller didn't even get a chance to respond before the only female soldier there interrupted.
"What do you mean?!" she questioned, getting up in the soldier's face. At her actions, all of her team and even Keller were frozen. Keller felt that there was something familiar about her voice. "Tony Stark isn't dead! He… he can't be dead!"
Keller now recognized her. It sounded like Anna, his Anna. "Anna?" he whispered. Anna turned around away from the now frightened soldier to meet the man whom was more like a father to her than her own or Obadiah. She sighed, letting silent tears start to run down her face as he came closer to her.
"Hello, John. It's been a few years." John reached up and removed her hat, and low and behold, it was Anna.
"Oh my god. Anna!" John whispered, before pulling her into a hug. "You're alive. Thank god. Do you have any idea how worried you made us? Especially with you leaving so soon after your parents died."
Her team and the other soldiers and the few S-7 agents around them were just listening and watching the exchange, too frozen and not knowing what to do. But the question on Lennox and his team's mind was: How does Anna know the Secretary of Defense?
And on everyone else's minds were: How does a simple soldier, no matter how smart, know the Secretary of Defense?
Anna smiled up at him as she pulled back and took a step back, wiping a few tears from her face.
"I couldn't take it anymore. My brother was being his usual b*****d self, drinking and doing other kinds of things. Obadiah was more worried about running the company. And I knew that you were busy with your family and being the Secretary of Defense so I didn't want to bother you. And besides, I found a new family, among the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, with these men behind me being my brothers in arms." John sighed at her words. He knew he couldn't berate her for running away and joining the military. That kind of thing took guts, even if her godmother was Peggy Carter and she got her nerves of steel from her godmother.
"Just promise me one thing, Anna."
"Anything."
"If you ever run away again, at least send me some type of message stating that you are alive."
Anna grinned. "I promise." she lost her smile though as her thoughts began to center on her brother again.
John knew it too. "Hey, don't you worry about a thing, Anna. After we get all of this settled, I will order search and rescue missions for Tony alright?"
Lennox couldn't hold it in any longer. "I'm sorry, sir, but why is Anna worried about Tony Stark?"
Keller looked confused as he looked at the soldier. "You mean, you don't know?" Everyone there shook their heads, even the new crowd of S-7 agents and the four people whom were obviously civillians.
"Anna, would you like to do the honors." Keller said, phrasing it as a question but Anna knew that it was an order. She sighed, turning her eyes onto her two best friends.
"My name that you all know me by is Anna Marie Jackson. But my real name is Anna Maria Stark, sister of Tony Stark, daughter of Howard Stark, and Co-CEO of Stark Industries… But I left that life behind me when I ran away from home at 18 to join the army." Anna said hurriedly as she saw slight looks of betrayal cross their faces. Lennox then gave her a look that said that she was going to be explaining everything to them after all of this mess.
Then they got their minds back on track when one of the civillians began to harass one of the S-7 agents about returning his car. Then they followed a S-7 agent into Hoover Dam, John not letting Anna away from his side. He had just gotten his surrogate daughter back, he wasn't going to be letting her go any time soon.
