DUMPSHOCK - FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL
The flight from California to New York had been uneventful and best and downright awkward at worst. They had contracted Tony's private jet to ferry the gentlemen across the country to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Central, in New York City. Nick Fury kept to himself, concentrating on the computer and satellite internet access he'd immediately demanded upon boarding the plane, while Tony hunkered down and tried to stay awake, to keep his own nightmares at bay, with varying degrees of success over the long flight.
"If Rhodey were here we cou..."
Tony immediately chastised himself mentally for the thought, forcing the wish back. The inventor wasn't even certain he'd be able to look his friend in the eyes again, let alone just hang out like it was old times. It would never be after what Tony had done. He'd taken the bottle of pain medications from the counter before Fury and he left, and, as the thought still churned in his mind, Tony dry swallowed two of the white pills to stop his own, traitorous mind. The inventor dozed in a white fog for the rest of the flight until Fury roused him with a gentle shake shortly before the jet landed.
A rather discreet looking black sedan with cream interior picked them up from Newark-Liberty International Airport in New Jersey to take them through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the City. Tony felt his old spirits kick up once or twice at Fury's expense. First, came the obligatory jest at having to land in Newark, the cesspool of America, to which the S.H.I.E.L.D. nonchalantly commented on how no one would ever think the great Tony Stark would ever fly to Newark as a cover. Then, when he spied the black sedan, Tony had to poke at how bland of and innocuous of a car it was, at which Fury asked in a huff if the millionaire would prefer riding into the City in the back of a garbage truck like someone by the name of Abe. Tony didn't ask and kept quiet for the rest of the drive.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Central towered over Manhattan in the southern end of the island. It pierced the sky in a point that glittered where it touched the clouds. Engineers designed the building to be taller than the World Trade Center towers, complete with state of the art security and structural safety features. Yet, for such an obtrusive part of the New York skyline, very few people actually knew the value of the fixture.
As soon as Tony stepped through the mirrored glass doors to the building, he began to wonder himself how no one's curiosity had ever piqued enough to try to sneak into the skyscraper. However, upon entering and getting a good look about, the inventor came to his senses. Dozens of heavily armed guards in black body armor stood in a precise line. Stark followed curiously in Fury's wake as the man brushed past a reception desk behind heavy lexan paneling, giving the elderly guard behind the desk a small wave.
They stepped into an elevator. Tony raised an eyebrow as Fury swiped a key card at the buttons and punched a few numbers. Numeric codes and keycards. Tony's eyes caught the motion and the sound of the beeping, filing it away in his mind. His own curiosity piqued at all of this as the doors slid closed with a metallic hiss. Down and down the elevator plunged, into the earth below the city. After the elevator descended to a seemingly impossible depth and Tony's ear had popped, it stopped, the doors slid open once more.
Before them stretched a long hall lined with glass windows to cells, with black clad guards posted every fifteen feet. Each cell had a door with an open slot in it, as well as holes running the length of both the top and bottom of the glass. Most of the cells were dark and empty. However, a few were lit further down the way. Tony squinted his eyes, trying to see into the darkened cells as they passed but spying nothing. As they came to the first lit cell, Fury slowed and stopped, folding his arms across his chest.
A familiar voice issued forth from the cell as Tony approached, stopping the inventor dead in his tracks. "Ah, Mr. Fury. Come to chitchat again?"
Obadiah Stane.
"I trust you enjoyed your last book?" Fury asked sociably, ignoring the initial question.
A bed creaked, as Obadiah must have stood; the sound of his former friend's voice thundered in Tony's ears. "It was an interesting selection to say the least." Tony recoiled slightly as a pale hand reached through the slot to hand out a book to Fury, Neil Gaiman's American Gods. "Gods and monsters walking around alongside normal people. Makes you think, doesn't it?"
"I suppose," Fury admitted with a sigh. "Mr. Stane, you have a visitor today."
"A visitor?" Tony couldn't tell whether or not Obadiah sounded angry or just surprised at the thought. "Who?"
Fury waved a beckoning hand towards Tony, who took a few, sheepish steps forward and into view of Obadiah. The older man looked tired since the Iron Monger incident, but his beard was cleanly trimmed and kemp. He'd been decked out in bright, green scrubs, a prisoner's garb, as opposed to the business suits Tony was so used to seeing his once friend and mentor in.
It surprised Tony even more to see the cell Obadiah had been confined to. There were a few bookshelves bolted to the walls, a small cot, and a plain desk. A few books sat up on the shelves, mostly paperbacks that looked like they'd certainly seen better days. A sleek, new laptop sat on the desk, open, but too far away for the inventor to see what Obadiah had been working on. It looked like a just a plain bedroom as opposed to the dark, dank prison cell Tony had been previously expecting.
Fury took notice of Stark's intrigue. "We're not animals at S.H.I.E.L.D., contrary to the popular belief."
Tony nodded in the direction of the computer. "Is it online?"
"Of course not," Fury answered quickly and hotly before stalking off, announcing as he left, "You have ten minutes."
Shock and rage flashed in Obadiah's face, but the man quickly contained it. "Tony, Tony, Tony. I haven't seen you in ages. Come to pay your old friend a little visit?"
"Cut the crap, Obi," Tony replied. "I need your help."
The older man laughed dryly, holding up his hands to the walls of his cell. "I'd love to, Tony, but I'm in a little bit of a pinch right now." He gave an almost evil wink. "But, maybe if you were to check back later, I could lend a hand."
Tony bristled, waiting until he was certain Fury had gotten out of easy earshot "Obi, tell me about Resonance."
There came a dark moment when Obadiah's face fell. It was true, the man had no poker face. His emotions screamed in every subtle gesture and nuance to his features. Tony stared intently as Obadiah registered a small measure of both recognition and something else beneath that. Fear? Confusion? No. Tony couldn't put his finger on it. Yet the inventor took note of it as Obadiah regrouped in a heartbeat in a vague attempt to conceal that response.
Obadiah drew a deep breath before carefully wording his answer with a smug grin. "Resonance is the potentially deadly tendency of a system to oscillate at maximum amplitude at certain frequencies, like the Old Tacoma Narrows and opera singers with wine glasses."
"Cute. Very cute. But I was talking more like a little project you had going with Ares Industries," Tony folded his arms across his chest, puffing up slightly as the arc reactor hummed against him.
Obadiah's lips pursed into a calculated frown. "So, you found out about that, huh?"
"Yeah. I did." Tony shook his head. "What were you up to down there?"
The older man began to pace, striding back and forth down the length of glass, but not nervously, more of a stroll of sorts. "I know you won't believe me, Tony, but I really never wanted to kill you. You just... you would never have agreed with our methods."
"What sort of methods?" When his elder didn't answer, Tony pressed. "What were you and Aurelius studying down there?" Obadiah again gave no response, no reaction, and, so, the inventor snapped and played his trump cards. "Tell me about Kitten and Jonas."
Obadiah turned on his heel, an eyebrow raised. "Where did you hear those names?"
"I met them. Both of them," Tony replied.
The prisoner nodded and came closer to the glass, studying his protege's bruised face. "I take if you did more than just meet them." His eyes slipped over Tony's face, noting the small patches of burnt skin and blisters. "So, you tangled with Kitten and you lived to tell the tale. Not many people can claim that." Obadiah seemed only vaguely impressed. "She's a pistol, isn't she?"
"What is she?"
Obadiah shrugged. "She's a deniable asset."
Deniable asset. The words alone gave Tony a small start. Corporate terms he'd heard only a few times in his life. Assets and tools that never officially existed, not on paper and certainly not in the real world. Rage boiled over in Tony as lights flickered over head. An ice pick jabbed into his brain and twisted as a migraine flared. The inventor rubbed his throbbing temples. The computer screen seemed to jump and shift as numbers and codes danced in Tony's mind and vision. He swallowed his pride along with two white pills, closing his eyes tightly until the episode subsided. When he opened his eyes, Tony realized that the dual vision had faded into the background and that this had not gone without Obadiah's notice.
"Feeling alright, Tony?" The businessman's seeming concern came out tainted by his previous betrayal.
The millionaire frowned. "What's it to you, Obi?"
"Curiosity." The older man reached over to the now utterly innocuous looking laptop and eased it closed. "Headache, Tony?"
"Maybe." The inventor stuffed his hands in his pockets, not wanting to give anything away to his once friend. Tony flashed a one-hundred-watt smile, but he knew it was fake. "Probably a hangover or a migraine."
"Possibly," Obadiah didn't sound entirely like he was in agreement; instead, he inquired with an extreme and unnerving interest, "How long have you been having them?"
"Since a certain assassin decided to blow-up one of our major research buildings."
The older man nodded in contemplation. "Which one?"
"SETEC."
Obadiah's face scrunched into an odd expression. "Ah." He paused for a moment before beaming. "Tell you what, Tony, since I'm in such a generous and forgiving mood, I'll answer your questions if you answer some of mine."
Tony grudgingly agreed. "Deal. So, what is Kitten, an assassin?"
The older man gave an odd shrug. "Sometimes." Obadiah stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I suppose it would all depend on her client. She's a shadowrunner, a freelancer. Mercenary, really. Heck, if the pay was right, she'd probably kill her own mother. But I hear she's been Mitsuhama's pet for quite a while now."
Tony furrowed his eyebrows. "How do you know so much about her?"
"Uh-uh." Obadiah waggled a cautionary finger at his once protege. "My turn. Did Kitten say or do something to you before these migraines started?"
"Maybe." Tony hadn't given the matter much thought, but, upon closer inspection, the headaches and odd flashes of information and computer coding had only started after she'd nearly killed him on the road that night by putting her hands upon him. "Now, how do you know all about Kitten?"
Obadiah's lips curled into a faint smile, that same smile, Tony recognized with a shudder, that he'd worn as he stared down upon the paralyzed inventor as he stole the arc reactor right out of Tony's chest. "Isn't it obvious, Tony? She's worked for us before. Her... unique skills were a great asset." Obadiah's blue eyes roved up and down the younger man before him, taking in as many details as possible. "Any other unusual symptoms associated with these migraines?"
Tony hated to admit the truth, but he had to get more information. "Mild visual hallucinations." There, quick like a bandaid, it was over. "How deep was she in the company?"
"Very." The other man groaned inwardly at the thought of Kitten having unlimited access and knowledge of all of Stark Industries facilities from her previous employment, but Obadiah quickly asked his question, glimmer in his eyes as the words spilt out. "Is she still alive, Tony?"
"Not for very long if I have anything to say about it," Tony growled, the image of Rhodes's neck snapping replaying in his mind macabrely. "How do I find her?"
The older man paced again, as though lost in his own thought, intensely studying the floor beneath his own feet. "She's a precious commodity, Tony. It'd be a shame if you killed her."
"So I've heard," Tony snarled, recalling Taiga Mitsuhama's own admission.
Obadiah gave a terse laugh. "You really have no idea, do you?" Tony shrugged his shoulders, and Obadiah chuckled harder and louder now. "Here you are going off cocked, locked, and ready to rock, but you haven't the slightest idea what you're up against." The man laughed, shaking his head. "I'd say that's not like you, but we both know it's a lie." Obadiah sighed. "You're in trouble with Kitten, aren't you?"
"Perhaps."
"If it involves Kitten, it must be bad." Obadiah paused, chewing on his lip like he only did when really thinking of something before asking, "Well, you're standing here, so it's got to be Miss Potts or Colonel Rhodes. Which one?"
"Rhodey," the millionaire conceded grimly. The prisoner stalked back and forth, almost prowling along his side of the glass like a caged wolf until Tony called out to him. "She's not going to stop, is she?"
"Probably not." Obadiah shook his head. "Kitten's got quite the reputation as a runner's concerned. If you're on her list, you should probably just kick back and enjoy the time you have left before she gets to you, along with anyone else who's seen her."
"Pepper..."
"Mr. Stark, your time is up," Fury's voice echoed down the long hall.
Tony leaned close to the glass, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Tell me how to find her."
"You've got to find a runner bar." Obadiah drew close as well, an urgency between them. "Order yourself a Flaming Kalashnikov. It's a calling card." Obadiah glanced down the hall as Nick Fury's footsteps approached. "And I am sorry, Tony, for what it's worth."
"Time to go, Mr. Stark."
Perhaps it was what strange words the two had shared or the migraine. Perhaps it was the haunting and knowing smile Obadiah gave him as Tony left, but that also could have been his own imagination. Maybe it was the pressing interrogation they had just shared. Whatever it was, Tony followed Fury down the long corridor feeling vaguely unsettled. The sensation lingered even as he settled into the leather chair on his private jet to return back to California, unescorted this time.
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Author's Notes: Mmm... a flaming kalashnikov. I could totally go for one of those right now.
