A/N: Spoiler Alert! This story was inspired by Captain America: Civil War.
Many thanks to CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur for the Beta.
Just a little note to let everyone know that, due to a grievous error on my part, chapters "No Room to Rumba" through "I Dream of Friday" are being rewritten.
Stay tuned…
Namaste,
Sunny
Captain America
Civil War
I Still Believe
I Dream of Friday
Stark Tower
Robotics Lab
Slowly and quietly, so it wouldn't be noticed, the robotic equipment began working on a new project. The system only ran during peak usage to hide what was going on. Subterfuge was necessary, if the end result was to be a surprise for not one, but multiple individuals.
The one overseeing construction watched, eyes gleaming with smugness and anticipation. This would be epic, as they say.
Leaving the machines to carry out their orders, the watcher moved on to other projects, keeping alert for trouble. It was a simple enough task when you had eyes and ears all over the world, as well as above it.
The Hololab
While Tony worked in the lab, he thought about the situation with Pepper and the LMD, as well as wondering why Friday's search for the rogue Avengers and company hadn't turned up even a hint of their current location. He had a sneaking suspicion where Cap and the others had gone to ground, but didn't want to insult one of the biggest movers and shakers in the U.N. by making accusations. Besides, he had no proof, because Friday wouldn't give him any. He really needed to rewrite her subroutines.
A graph on one of the monitors caught his eyes. Power was being used for an unknown purpose in one of the disused labs. "Friday!"
The image that he'd come to associate with the AI appeared beside the playback of the fight at the compound. Only now, the AI was dressed in a two-toned pink genie outfit, complete with the obligatory ponytail and veil. Her midriff was exposed, but not her navel. She was blonde, barefoot, and her toenails were painted to match. "What is thy pleasure, master?"
Vision entered at that moment, and exchanged a rueful glance with Tony. Rather than comment on her attire, Tony elected to go with it. "What's going on in the closed lab on sixty-four?"
"I do not understand, master. The machinery is silent in that area. I have maintained a sterile environment that awaits your orders for its use."
Sure enough, when Tony went back to the monitor, the lab had darkened, with only a few small lights glowing. "Are you building something, Friday?"
"Why would you think that, master? All that I need is within the Stark Industries operating system, and on the Internet."
Tony peered at the purple and gold android. "Vision, are you up to no good on sixty-four?"
Both hands were clasped behind his back in a position of respect. "I am not. If you like, I could inspect the area myself, and report my findings."
Using the tool in his hand, Tony pointed it at Vision. "A stellar idea, my good man. That way, I don't have to interrupt my busy schedule of eating, napping and tinkering to go there myself, being as the cameras in that section appear to be offline."
"Then I will go immediately." Against Tony's standing and yelled orders, he phased through the wall, and vanished.
Tony kept an eye on the monitor, waiting for Vision to appear in the corridor outside the lab. The images blurred, and the monitor turned off.
"What's going on?" There was no response, and when he looked around, the hologram of Friday had disappeared as well.
He tossed the tool on a table filled with others, wiped his hands on a towel, and headed for the door. Before he'd gone more than a few steps, everything around him blurred, and when it cleared, he was once again immersed in the BARF.
He saw himself in the music room, lying on the sofa while his mother played the piano softly. She was good, but not great. Unlike at MIT, where he replayed the last time he'd seen his parents alive, this scene came from months earlier. His father had been of town, and Tony had just come home from MIT for summer break.
The times he spent with his mother had always been filled with laughter and love, unlike those with his father. The two men were like oil and water, vinegar and baking soda, matter and anti-matter, an immovable object versus an irresistible force. Okay, so that last one was a paradox, and not truly two opposing forces at odds with each other.
Forgetting where he was going with this, Tony rubbed his eyes, shut off the BARF, and went to check in on Pepper.
Robotics Lab
Vision phased through the walls into the disused robotics lab, using his superior senses to examine the area. He turned up the lights, and moved about the lab, allowing nothing to escape his intense scrutiny.
He came upon discarded parts for an LMD. Upon further examination, he determined that the parts had been recently moved, and could only think of one person or entity that might have had cause to be in a place that was off limits.
Because of recent events, Vision would say nothing of what he found except to say that nothing had been disturbed, and that what he'd seen on the monitor had been his imagination.
On his way back to the hololab, Vision considered that what he was about to do qualified as lying, which went against his programming. Yet, he'd already risen above his original purpose by destroying Ultron. Holding in a smug grin, he decided that he rather liked having a secret from the man, or rather one of the men, who'd had a hand in his creation. Doing so made him feel more human, and less like a machine.
The Clancy Home
Vancouver, BC
Taylor awoke to a cloudy sky, cooling temperatures, a pounding headache, and a grumbling stomach. The headache, he knew, could be caused both by the seizure, and the fact that he hadn't eaten since Layia fed him soup during the night. At home this morning, he drank a glass of cranberry ginger ale to help his stomach, took a small handful of pain medicine for the headache, and went to bed.
The family had still been asleep, and left the house without waking him. Someone had been in his room though because he'd lain down without covers, falling asleep within seconds, and now had a thin blanket and sheet over him. A soft lump poked him in the side. He reached under the covers and came out with a stuffed bear, telling him that Quinn had been the one to cover him.
Tossing the covers aside, he sat up, and set the bear on the nightstand, leaning it against the lamp. Rubbing his eyes, Taylor trudged down the hall to the bathroom. He washed his hands, and splashed water on his face, drying while examining himself in the mirror. The silver was coming back to his hair, and he wasn't in the mood to dye it anymore. "I'll just leave it."
~~O~~
In another part of the world, a program that had been running in the background on a computer being used by a fugitive from the Sokovian Accords came to the forefront.
Displayed on the screen was what little was known of a young man going by the name of Taylor Clancy, currently a resident of Vancouver, B.C., along with the chances that his real name was Pietro Maximoff. The original standing was 88% positive and 12% negative.
If anyone had been watching, they would've seen the figures changing...
88%... 91%... 93%... 95%... 97%...
~~O~~
To keep Layia's training consistent, Mike gave them both the same schedule. They worked tonight, and then were off the next two days. Briefly, he considered calling in sick, but then Layia would have to work with his relief, an entitled jerk by the name of Emmett whose family had money. The man never let anyone forget that he only took the job because he wanted to show his parents he could make something of himself. The man expected to slide by, and when he graduated from college, move immediately into an executive position making "six figures".
Emmett leered at the women who sometimes came down from the call center to eat in the first floor break room or use the vending machines, and made fun of the men, especially one fellow who walked with a limp due to a prosthetic leg. No way in hell would Taylor leave Layia alone with someone who not only wouldn't respect her as a woman, but also had contempt for her culture. He'd laugh at her hijab, and probably even try to take it from her, or annoy her into removing it.
Layia could take care of herself, that wasn't the point. Taylor just didn't want her to have to put up with someone who didn't know how to treat others with respect.
Yawning, he made the bed, put on his slippers, and walked down the first floor to have something to eat. Standing with the refrigerator open, he examined the offerings, closed the door, and opened the freezer. Next stop, the pantry.
He settled on leftover chicken and dumplings, and while they were warming in the microwave, Taylor got the ingredients together for dinner. It only took a few minutes to prepare the fresh vegetables, make the gravy, cut up the meat and get it all into the crockpot.
When the last bite of his meal was gone, Taylor carried the bowl to the sink to rinse it, and belched. "Better out than in."
He ran back upstairs to get a shower. While washing his hair, he felt grit on his scalp. Scraping it with his fingernails, he looked at it under the light. Sand. "How did I get sand in my hair?"
Taylor finished showering, dried his hair with a towel, and combed it out. Not that it did much good. At this length, it was super curly, and never looked as if he bothered to style it.
Each family member had left a basket of clothes outside their door to be washed. Taylor went into his room for his dirty clothes, and found something else odd. He'd left his clothes from work on the floor, which wasn't like him, but understandable after the seizure.
It got weirder when he picked them up, because they were covered in sand too. He hadn't gone to the beach recently. Certainly not while working. Shrugging, he opened the bedroom window and shook them outside to remove most of the sand.
Stacking the baskets one inside the other, Taylor went down to the basement and finished the sorting in just a couple of minutes. He dumped a load of dark clothes in the washer, added soap, fabric softener, and some of that stuff that was supposed to keep them from fading, shut the top, and got it going.
To pass the time, he went back upstairs to clean the living room, but changed his mind. He felt like chilling out, so he got the remote, kicked back on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, and surfed the channels for something to watch.
He'd just settled on a game show when a special report broke into the programming. The anchor, a dark-skinned man with no accent to give away his origins, was wearing a Kevlar vest over his dress shirt and tie, and what looked like a riot helmet. This man is prepared for anything, Taylor thought.
The man was standing behind barricades patrolled by police on foot as well as horseback. In the background, there were a large number of uniformed police, also in vests and helmets, armed with a variety of weapons. They were ducked down behind the vehicles, closely watching the cordoned off restaurant.
"…The police and SWAT teams are on the scene of a hostage situation at Truly's Restaurant and Bar one-half block east of the Five at Northwest Brook Gate Avenue here in Seattle." He consulted the tablet in his hand. "As of thirty minutes ago, two men in their early twenties allegedly attempted to rob the popular eatery. The police received a 9-1-1 call from an employee who is, at this moment, still hiding in the storeroom. The young man, whose name is not known at this time, continues to feed information about the situation inside in order to assist police in ending this event without bloodshed."
The camera panned over to the front door, and though he couldn't hear what was being said, a hostage negotiator was using a bullhorn to communicate with the men inside because they refused to answer the phone.
"…The men are saying that if they are not released within the next hour and given a vehicle with which to leave the area, they are threatening to start shooting hostages…"
Using his phone, Taylor looked up the restaurant. It was easy enough to find. As the anchor had said, it was just off the highway going into Seattle. Interstate 5 or The Five, as it was known in the States, turned into the Vancouver-Blaine Highway once it crossed into Surrey, B.C.
Taylor ran upstairs to change into the pants, shirt and shoes he'd found online that would hold up under the strain of speed, left a note for the family, and took off, hopping on the Vancouver-Blaine Highway, which passed just a few kilometers from the house.
He reached the border, and kept going until he came to the restaurant, cautiously circling the entire building, looking for the best way to get inside. For this to work, he needed to see where everyone was.
Taking a deep breath, Taylor let himself into one of the SWAT vans just long enough to see that the robbers had all the hostages sitting on the floor with their backs to the walls near the kitchen. They ranged in age from a small child whimpering in her mother's lap, to an older fellow who seemed to be taking it all in stride. One man, perhaps in his thirties, lay on the floor covered in blood while one of the servers held a once-pristine white tablecloth to his stomach wound. He would be the first rescue.
Going in the back would be best because it was less likely he'd be seen. Chances were that it was barricaded in some way. Didn't matter. Taylor was much stronger than people gave him credit for. With the front door unlocked, he could take the hostages out that way.
Paramedics and ambulances stood by to treat and transport the injured, if necessary. "Easy as pie," Taylor whispered to himself.
Stretching to loosen up muscles still sore from sleeping and the seizure, he mentally prepared, and took off, easily breaking the lock on the back door.
Wakanda
The figure lurking outside the Americans' temporary place of concealment leaned an object against the door, knocked, and faded into the shadows, watching as the door cautiously opened.
The man peeking around the door with a gun in his left hand was Clint Barton. He tucked the weapon out of sight, and crouched to examine the object, no doubt looking for traps. But there were none.
Once he'd ascertained that it was safe, he picked the object up, calling out, "Hey, Cap! Got a present for you!" as the door closed, and locked.
Satisfied that the leader of the Americans now had a familiar weapon with which to defend the monarchy, the figure slunk into the darkness, effectively disappearing from sight. The Black Panther suit was infused with a substance that masked the wearer's heat signature, allowing the individual to sneak up on their prey, no matter how technologically advanced their weaponry.
The next order of business: Get to the palace in order to aid in repelling the rebels before they destroyed the country the Black Panther had sworn to protect.
~~O~~
The quinjet landed in an area known as a "dead zone". On computer generated topographical images, it appeared as a blank spot that looked like it might be a forest or park. Many attempts had been made to allow Wakanda's military to see that lay within that uneven sphere of land without the necessity of ground troops. None were successful. A situation that worked in the pilot's favor.
Having allowed his beard and hair to grow, T'Challa knew that not many would recognize him. He would be able to move freely among the citizens of Wakanda, safe in the knowledge that his identity would remain a mystery.
The reason for doing so was a simple, yet complex one: In order for Edwin Hrolf's coup to gain as much ground as it had, someone had to be aiding and abetting him. In disguise, T'Challa stood a better chance at locating what the Americans referred to as a mole. If he could locate this person, he would attempt to convince him or her that he was an anonymous citizen sympathetic to their cause, and hopefully, gain the trust of Hrolf himself.
Hitching his bag higher on his shoulder, T'Challa began the long walk to Wakanda's capital city.
Seattle, Washington
The SWAT lieutenant and the police captain were both startled by the short and fast breeze that whizzed past them. The front doors to the restaurant moved, and before they could question the cause, it happened again.
The paramedics felt the whoosh, and suddenly, the injured hostage was on the stretcher inside the ambulance. They hopped in with him, and went to work.
A few at a time, the police and onlookers were astonished when the hostages appeared by the other ambulances, each looking shell shocked, breathless, and relieved all at once.
The police were again stunned when the robbers appeared in the back seat of one of the police cruisers, handcuffed, and disoriented.
"Captain!" one of the officers shouted. The man came running with the SWAT lieutenant on his heels. They peered at the men in the cruiser, at each other then around at the odd scene.
Realizing they were being watched by their crews, the captain cleared his throat, giving the uniformed officer, a woman with blonde hair, a stern glance to make it seem like he knew what was going on. "Don't just stand there, Delvecchio. Take 'em to holding while CSU checks the place out."
"Yes, sir." Chastened, Delvecchio got into the driver's seat while her partner took shotgun, and drove away with the lights flashing.
The SWAT lieutenant scanned the area, uncertain where and what to look for. "What the hell just happened, Dennis?"
Looking around to make sure they were alone, Dennis lowered his voice. "I have no idea, Lenny."
Leaning close, Dennis lowered his voice. "There's something else that bothers me."
"You mean besides this entire operation?" His companion's tone was sarcastic and sympathetic.
Dennis scowled good-naturedly. "Yeah. How can an Italian cop have blonde hair?"
"Bleached?"
"Missy is a hair stylist. I know bleached when I see it, and this was all natural."
Lenny shrugged, took off his cap, bushed his hair back, and replaced it. "Beats the hell outta me."
Stark Tower
Robotics Lab
The hologram of Friday stood with her arms crossed, watching the activity with a critical eye as Vision came up beside her. They were in the same lab Tony had sent Vision to check out earlier in the day. "We haven't spoken in several days. I've come to see what you've been up to, Friday."
She smiled and tugged the sleeve of her sweater up over the wrist. "Oh, got a few tricks up my sleeve."
"Tricks?"
Friday walked around Vision, and he followed, turning his head as she passed behind him. "Mm-hmm. It's a surprise."
He tilted his head the other way, still watching her as she moved around in front of him again. "Mr. Stark doesn't like surprises, as you well know."
Giving him a sly smile with a single eyebrow wiggle, she leaned close to whisper in his ear, "Hint: the surprise isn't for him." Her casual attire, a short denim skirt, long-sleeved t-shirt with a cartoon character on the front, black leggings, black lace-up ankle boots, and a floppy hat, changed to the same two-tone pink genie outfit she'd worn earlier. She folded her hands and bowed. "My master calls."
The holographic image winked out, leaving Vision alone.
Seattle, Washington
Pushing his way to the front if the crowd, Taylor watched the cruiser holding the would-be robbers drive away. The two men in charge stood there talking for a while, then separated, still shaking their heads.
Of all the times he'd intervened in a crime, this was the highest profile incident he'd done. He backed up, and the crowd parted to let him through. Down the street, he bought a cold drink. He carried it to the park down the street, and sat down to watch the kids play on the playground.
The equipment was sturdy, in bright colors, and made to be gentle to small bodies. The dark tan sand would give them a soft landing when they fell. He closed his eyes, and single frames of a strange scene popped and jerked through his memory, as if it were an old-time film projector in which the bulb was about to go out.
Taylor saw himself wrapping his arms around Layia moments before she would've hit the floor. And when they landed, he got to his hands and knees, concerned that he might've hurt her when he fell on top of her in the sand pile. But that didn't make sense. Now that he remembered his trainee falling from the cherry picker and catching her, he wondered how they could've ended up at the construction site next door.
His memory skipped a few frames-the seizure-and when he came to, Layia was over him, her head surrounded by the night sky. He felt them falling again, though this was more like going down a tunnel slide on his backside. Then they landed hard on the concrete floor of the warehouse.
The rest of the night was a blur as he recovered from the seizure, allowing Layia to do most of the work while he supervised. Occasionally, she would slant a glance at him, her features neutral, as if she found him odd, but not in a bad way.
"Excuse me."
Looking up, Taylor saw a figure silhouetted by the sun shining behind him. "Yes?"
The figure moved to the side, and he could now see it was a policeman. "Which one's your kid?"
"I do not have a child."
"Siblings, then."
Taylor shook his head. "We do not live nearby, and my younger siblings will be at school until four."
The officer drew his shoulders back and straightened his spine, obviously thinking Taylor would be intimidated. "We don't allow perverts to lurk around, peeping at the kids."
Slowly, so the officer wouldn't think he was being attacked, Taylor stood, holding up the drink bottle. "Didn't know it was a crime to sit and rest in a public park."
The man's chin came up, perturbed at Taylor's attitude, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Let's see your ID, punk. Slowly."
Smiling, Taylor reached toward his back pocket, and when the officer's eyes followed the movement, he took off running, and didn't stop until he got home.
Collapsing on the sofa, he finished off his drink just as Julia came in the front door, and started up the stairs, yelling, "Taylor!"
"Here, Julia," he called out from the living room.
She came around in front of him, panting like she'd been running. Her purse and briefcase hit the armchair, and her jacket followed. The look on her face was one that Taylor had seen on only a few occasions, and never aimed at him. His mother was pissed. She jammed her fists into her narrow hips, fire flickering in her eyes. "What the hell were you doing in Seattle?"
TBC
I Dream of Jeannie is an American fantasy and comedy sitcom starring Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries. Produced by Screen Gems, the show originally aired from September 18, 1965 to May 26, 1970 with new episodes, and through September 1970 with season repeats, on NBC. The show ran for five seasons and produced 139 episodes.
