21

19 HOURS LATER

"Ah, Mister Parker."

At the sound of Tony's voice, Peter quickly looked up.

Tony stood in the doorway of the hospital room, both hands in his pockets, the picture of casual-cool. Despite the medical tape over the cuts on his face, he wore an easy grin.

Peter smiled back and spoke quickly into the phone he was holding to his ear. "Hey May, I'm gonna call you back, okay? See you soon. . . . Yeah, I know. I know. Bye." Ending the call, he turned back to Tony and stood up from the bed. "Hey!"

Tony strolled into the room, giving Peter a once-over. "Well," he said. "You seem to be doing well, against the doctor's orders." He nodded his head upwards. "How's that shoulder?"

Peter glanced down. His left arm was in a sling. "It's fine, uh – good, actually," he said. "They said I could go home tomorrow."

"Oh, of course." Tony glanced away. "As if it wasn't enough that you stole my thunder of taking a bullet, you've already recovered. All of the glory with none of the rehab. To be fair, that's the way I would do it."

Peter grinned.

"I will say one thing," Tony commented, raising an eyebrow. "You've sufficiently lowered the pride of the staff on this floor."

Peter looked up with a puzzled frown. "What?"

"Your increased healing. It's driving them nuts. It's great. You weren't even supposed to be up and walking til tomorrow."

Tony let out a sigh as he drummed his fingers against the plastic frame of the bed. "So it's all over, then," he said. "SHIELD's taking care of the hackers, Tower's being fixed, and the Mirror Protocol has been officially, gloriously scrapped." He wandered over to the window on one side of the room and paused at the window for a moment. "Nice view, huh?" he said, distracted. "SHIELD's always got the best."

Peter didn't say anything. He was watching Tony's back, feeling the man was ready to speak. "Mister Stark –"

"Yeah, uh, just –" Tony halfheartedly held up one hand. He turned around, rubbing his temples. "I'm trying to get to my point here. Listen. The suit – the armor – When we were in the Tower –" He blew a short frustrated breath through his cheeks, cutting himself off. "Okay, I'm gonna start over.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said simply. "For – all that. The hacked armor, the whole deal." Tony pursed his lips and glanced away. "Shouldn't have happened."

Peter leaned against the bed. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm asking here –" Tony finally looked up at him and studied his face. "You alright?"

When Peter looked up at him, he continued. "I don't just mean yes, I can move my elbow even though I broke it yesterday. I'm talking headspace. You okay?"

"I'm really okay, Mister Stark. I'm fine."

Tony held his gaze for a moment. His dark eyes were soft at the edges, and Peter suddenly realized – the armor being hacked had affected Tony way more than it had him. "Okay. Good," he said softly.

Pulling in a sharp breath, he pulled a pair of sunglasses out from his breast pocket and slipped them on. "Then this is where we part ways, I think." He held out a hand to shake. "Once again, Mister Parker."

"Yeah." Peter shook.

"And hey, next time you get a call from me?" Tony raised an eyebrow. "Our code word is Mirror Protocol, deal?"

Peter grinned. "Deal," he said. He let go of Tony's hand. "See you around."

Tony gave him a quick flash of his usual smirk. "Don't count on it." He headed for the door and called over his shoulder. "Bye, kid!"

"They locked me out, Tony. They locked me out of the Tower and then they hacked into my phone. What could I have done?"

Tony hopped over a line of construction tape. "Is that rhetorical?" he asked. "Uh, let me think. You could have told me in person that my Tower was under attack?"

Happy lifted the tape over his head and ducked under it. "Hey, want to know something?" he asked, striding quickly to catch up. "I tried. Three in the morning and I was driving like a crazy person back to some godforsaken SHIELD hospital to tell you what happened, and what do I find? I find out you've already taken off to go to the very place I was trying to warn you about."

"Hap. I'm not that upset."

Happy continued anyway. "I broke the speed limit, Tony. I've only broken the speed limit twice in my life, and both times have been for you."

Tony chuckled as he walked around a pile of broken glass that had been swept into a pile.

Avengers Tower was going through one final renovation. Workers milled around, cleaning up the broken glass and the damages the hacked Iron Man suit had done. A large plastic tarp had been temporarily sealed over the broken window, and scaffolding had been built up to the ceiling where the suit had lasered out a circle.

Happy consulted the clipboard in his hand. "Well, according to the report, the damage was minimal – a few busted locks, some damage to the walls, the destroyed ceiling, and the window."

"Yeah, probably not my best move," Tony admitted.

Happy looked up quickly. "That was you?"

"That was what?" Tony deflected, just as quickly. He grinned and turned towards the tarp that had been affixed over the window. His eyes narrowed at it, calculating.

"No," Happy said, noticing the expression on Tony's face.

"I didn't say a word," Tony said, raising his hands.

"You've got that look on your face. I know that look, and you need to stop thinking whatever you were thinking."

"You know what I was thinking? Okay, what was I thinking?"

"I don't know, holograms–" Happy waved one hand, "– embedded into the windows or something."

"It's actually not a bad idea," Tony started, but Happy cut him off.

"No more renovations. We've been trying to move to the Compound for a week. A week, Tony. And you still haven't moved out all your workshop stuff out of here."

"Okay, you've got some fair points, but –"

"We're not changing the window, end of story, okay?" Happy said. "We've already ordered the new glass."

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony caught sight of Fury, leaning against the far wall, half-hidden by shadows. "You know what?" he said, distracted. "You're right. Sounds good. Hap, I'm gonna leave this in your capable hands. I've gotta go take care of a. . . thing."

He patted Happy's back and headed towards Fury.

As he strode towards him, Tony jerked his head up in a nod as greeting. "You always use the back door?"

"I prefer a dramatic entrance," Fury replied, only half-joking.

Tony grinned and glanced away. "How's the search going? Find the rest of your rebellious kids yet?"

"We're still rounding up the last of them," Fury sighed, crossing his arms. "HEL's scattered themselves pretty well. And they've trained themselves pretty damn well, too. Still haven't gotten the name of their employer out of any of them yet." He paused. "But we're doing our best to trim up the loose threads."

"Yuh-huh. So what're you doing here?"

"You know what I'm doing here," Fury said, raising his eyebrows. "You've been putting something off, Tony."

"And you've been snooping," Tony said. "Apparently. Shall we?" Sliding his hands into his pockets, he started for a door marked with a Post-It that read, in rapidly scribbled Sharpie, PRIVATE DO NOT ENTER.

Fury raised an eyebrow at the handwritten note. "Your own security detail?"

"Yeah, poke fun. It was a little last minute. Look, I had to keep the orange hats from busting in here and setting something off." Tony swept the door open, ripping the Post-It off as he went inside.

"There she is," he said, crumpling the Post-It in his hand.

The Casket sat in the darkened room. It had been powered off, and it sat in the dark.

"Still whole," Fury said with emphasis. "You haven't wiped the program yet."

Tony walked backwards to face Fury. "Do you actually send agents in here to scan it, or do you just know everything instinctively?"

"I just know everything," Fury replied, completely deadpan. "At least, most of the time." He walked forward a pace. "What I don't know is why you haven't scrapped this thing yet."

A long silence hung in the air. A corner of Tony's mouth twitched, like he was debating what to say. "Obviously King was a lunatic, but –" Hands in his pockets, he shrugged his shoulders. "Wasn't a bad plan." He gave Fury a quick, wry grin and slowly circled around the Casket. "Wasn't the worst plan. We could bring in Cap. The program knows how to find him and how to bring him in, unscathed, in one piece. We'd have Rogers and Barnes in one spot. Who knows who else would follow them? Maybe we bring in Wilson – even Wanda. All of them are technically vigilantes."

"Tony."

Fury's voice, with a note of sadness, brought Tony to an abrupt halt. Biting his tongue, Tony shook his head and didn't look up. "We'd know where in the world they are," he continued, his voice quiet with conviction. "We'd know they'd be safe. The Avengers would be contained."

"No, Tony," Fury corrected, walking forward, "the Avengers would be caged."

Tony looked away.

The Director leaned forward over the darkened hub, resting his fingers against the glass touchscreen. "And you and I both know that's the last thing you want to do."

There was a silence. Still not meeting his eyes, Tony nodded once. "You're usually right, Nick."

"Damn right I am," Fury said, but his voice was gentle. "Destroy it, Tony." He leaned away. "You know it's what you have to do."

Without giving the other man time to respond, he started walking towards the door.

Tony twisted around as Fury walked away. "What? Hey. Where are you going? Not sticking around to watch the fireworks?"

Fury paused in the doorway. "I trust you to do the right thing, Tony," he said. "You've have enough of a wake-up call."

The edge of Tony's mouth quirked upwards in a humorless smile.

"It takes up too much space anyway!" Fury added over his shoulder as he closed the door after him.

Left in silence, Tony turned back to the Casket. He chuffed out a short breath and shook his head slightly, but his eyes didn't move from the machine.

Okay.

"JARVIS?" He stood still, hands behind his back, looking at the hub. "Terminate Casket program."

"With pleasure, sir."

Tony waited in front of it, absentmindedly snapping his fingers against his palms to fill the silence.

"Termination complete," JARVIS announced after a moment. "The Casket program is no more."

"Thank you muchly, JARVIS," Tony said. He continued to stare at the empty shell of the Casket.

Nothing had changed from the outside. Nothing. There hadn't even been the slightest electronic fizzle.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," he muttered.

He tilted his head and closed one eye, scrutinizing it carefully. The Casket was still too. . . there.

He slid back the sleeve of his right hand and double-tapped the face of his watch. Immediately, the watch made a whirring noise and reconfigured itself into a partial Iron Man gauntlet, rapidly encapsulating his wrist. A light blue circle of light settled into the palm of his hand.

He raised the gauntlet and fired a blast at the Casket.

The hub's glass touchscreen shattered and spat sparks.

Tony kept firing blasts, over and over again, until the Casket began to break apart. The metal started to melt into itself.

After a few moments, Tony lowered his arm, panting slightly. Drawing himself up to his full height, he reviewed his work.

Now the Casket was unrecognizable.

Tony nodded to himself. "Better," he said aloud.

Popping the gauntlet off his wrist, he turned to leave the room.

"JARVIS?" he called up to the ceiling. "We have a mess in the Workshop Office. Deal with it."

.

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A/N: Well, here we are, folks! The end. *questions what I'm going to do with my life now*

A million thanks to everybody who read, enjoyed, followed, favorited, and especially, who reviewed this story. I had such a good time writing this and posting it, and it's because you guys were such an awesome audience. :D I distinctly remember the Saturday morning after I posted the very first chapter, because the rush of e-mails I got telling me how many people followed this story had me grinning like a happy idiot all day. :D So thanks for being here, folks! I really appreciate you all.

And for your reviews, thank you to: EmilyF.6, cargumentluv, Shadow-wolf78, curry-llama, and NovakCat!

I am not planning to write a sequel, but I hope to catch you later on some other story!