"I'm telling you, as soon as my plan begins all of you are dead." Tony threatened, narrowing his dark eyes.
"You're zip-tied to a cheap bed frame. I think we'll all be safe." the guard with a ponytail replied. He sat in a corner under a dirty window in a folding chair, feet propped up on a small rusty table. His gun was on his hip.
The short haired guard said nothing, simply snorting and playing with the items found on Tony's person when he was captured. He lifted a thin, pink Dora the Explorer watch and raised a brow at Tony.
"That's limited edition. You break it, you buy it." Tony stated.
Short Hair threw the watch to the ground and smirked mischievously.
"I guess I bought it..."
"Tony! Man, do Maya and I have something to show you." Aldrich's silky voice taunted. Tony clenched and relaxed his jaw, taking Maya's betrayal surprisingly well. In a way, he was expecting her to do something similar to what she was currently doing.
In the back of his mind, he wondered if Pepper and Calico were okay, but there was little time to dwell on the thought. Not when The Mandarin was approaching him and holding something that could potentially be dangerous in his fist. Unconsciously, Tony's own restrained fingers gave a twitch, as if preparing to grab something (He wasn't sure what, but it was something).
"What's the point in all this again?" Tony asked. Aldrich grimaced and rocked back and forth from his heel to his toe.
"I wouldn't expect you to remember right off the top of your head. But that small, mousy man that needed a cane to hold himself up back on the New Year's Eve party in '99?"
Tony looked up in a desperate attempt to remember. What he managed to recall was vague- a foreign country, sleeping with Maya, Happy with a mullet - but he could almost see a scruffy blond man, hunched over a cane and walking with a slight limp.
"Yeah... Switzerland. Oh shit, you're him aren't you."
It wasn't even a question. Tony immediately pieced together everything. Aldrich was no longer disabled because he had injected himself with Extremis, and Maya had met up with him at some point to offer her assistance. It seemed, however, that Maya had not had the procedure preformed on her.
"Hey, I have something you might be interested in." Aldrich tossed something to the ground, and a somewhat grainy video popped up.
At first glance it just appeared to be another one of Aldrich's experiments in their early stages, but a closer look revealed that it was actually Calico. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and her skin held a faint red glow underneath. In between her shrieks of agony her breaths were shallow and somewhat labored. She strained violently against the restraints, and Tony wasn't entirely sure if she was smoking or if the video's horrible quality was related somehow.
Tony swallowed thickly, not entirely sure how he wanted to react and still in slight denial. Maybe it wasn't Calico.
"It's her. This is a live streaming video, and Poor little Calico is nearly in the last stage of Extremis. She's in a whole lot of pain." Aldrich lied, clicking his tongue at the tortured young woman in the recording.
"Why'd you have to bring her into this?" Tony asked, averting his gaze.
"Because for Calico, she's in the stage where things could go either way for her. She could blow up, or she could survive. We knew you wouldn't help us perfect Extremis unless we took her. You'll help us for her, won't you?" Aldrich explained, slowly walking over to Tony. He gripped his neck firmly and began to squeeze.
"Killian, stop!" Maya shouted from close to the exit.
Both men had forgotten that she was there. She stood with her head tilted to the side and a needle at her neck. She looked frazzled, as if being involved with this evil new Aldrich had cost her sleep.
Aldrich moved his hand from Tony's throat and eased his hands into his pocket.
"Twelve Hundred C-C's. Half a dose of this and I'm dead." she threatened, teeth clenched.
"Maya..."
"You need me, Killian. Don't you lay a finger on them. Not any more. I'll do it." she threatened.
Aldrich smiled softly and shook his head.
"It's okay, Maya. I'm sorry, I got a tad overexcited." he gently coaxed her into lowering the needle. And when she dropped it, he pulled out a gun from his pocked and swiftly shot her in the chest. She slid down the wall, looking at him questioningly before she collapsed. Aldrich dropped the gun and turned to Tony, who was watching attentively.
"I can't handle loose canons."
"..."
"I'll give you some time to think things over. I'll be back in two hours. If you don't have a reply, I'm going to shot you." The blond exited, stepping over Maya's crumpled form without a second glance.
Silence rang in the dank, concrete room, while Tony rapidly began to piece together a haphazard escape plan. Before he could begin to execute his half baked idea (or even complete formulating it), however, Ponytail released a breath he'd been holding loudly.
"Man, you're in a fucked up position!"
...
I NEED A NEW COMPUTER OMFG
