Chapter Ten: Glitch in the Matrix
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Tony never did recall what happened. He remembered writing down the address JARVIS had provided and then arriving to talk to the man who had hired Natalia to take down a rival, but after that? He remembered nothing until he'd been returning to the apartment.
There had been too many police in the area to do any meaningful reconnaissance after the fact. The newspaper had said several people had been killed in a suspected gang hit. JARVIS had nothing further to offer on the matter.
As soon as Natalia had had a bit of time to heal, she and Tony relocated. She had teased that she was going with him because he needed somebody to look after him. Tony thought she was at least partly serious. In her way, Natalia was concerned about him. To be fair, he was concerned about himself.
So, they went to a new city and took on new identities. Tony had became Aleksander Petrov and Natalia his sister Lidiya. The identities had been her idea. It made Tony feel warm inside.
"Sasha!" Natalia called out as he carried in a box from the hall, using his present identity's nickname in case any neighbors overheard. She was staring down U who didn't seem the least cowed by her scowl. "Your garbage arm keeps getting in my way," she complained in Russian, whiny in a way she'd never be with the door closed.
"Because you shouldn't be carrying anything, yet," Tony responded, setting down his own box to grab hold of the one she was carrying.
She refused to relinquish her hold on it. "I'm fine," she informed him in a sweet tone that promised him harm.
"You're still healing. And I know exactly how many meds you've been taking to walk around like you aren't in pain," he countered.
Her green eyes glittered in challenge, but she finally released the box. "I'm not some damsel in distress," she gritted out, lowering herself into a chair.
"No one is saying you are, Lidiya," Tony assured her. "No one with any sense would even dare." Natalia flashed him a fierce grin, then set to booting up one of the laptops while Tony made sure the rest of the things they'd brought made it inside.
Later, after everything had been moved in and Tony had set up his computer and other electronics, the two of them settled in for a quiet evening. Natalia had set aside the laptop in favor of reading a battered paperback Tony was pretty sure had been accidentally stolen from a library. The television was on, volume low and closed captioning along the bottom of the screen. From his computer desk, Tony paid enough attention to notice that whoever had captioned the episode had done a rather poor job of it.
"My friend," Tony shared before he had put much thought into it, "he lived with me before you and I met. He liked to watch these soaps, but he didn't always like to wear his hearing aids. At least, not at home when he was comfortable. The problem being that he can't hear without his hearing aids but he'd forget to turn on subtitles, so he'd be completely lost. So, I just started to make sure the closed captioning was always on."
"And did that help?" Natalia asked. She'd put down the book to give him her attention. The way the light hit her hair still gave it a reddish sheen even though she'd died it a dark brown before they'd relocated.
Tony let out a soft laugh and shook his head. "No. He only ever paid half-attention to the shows, anyway, so he was still lost," he said.
"Where did he go?" she questioned.
The brunet's smile faded a bit and he turned his focus back to his computer monitors. "He… He was offered a chance to do more, I suppose, and he decided to take it," he replied. "We keep in contact, off and on. Seems to be working out for him."
There was quiet save for the quiet clack of keyboard keys and the soft murmur of the television. Something dramatic was happening, judging by the swell of the music.
"You miss him." It wasn't a question. It wasn't anything other than an observation.
"Yeah. Yeah, I miss him," Tony conceded. "But he's fine. He's doing alright."
"Antoshka." Natalia waited until he looked up at her to continue. "Just because he is alright doesn't mean you can't miss him." She gave him a moment to let that sink in before turning back to her book.
He watched her for another moment before nodding to himself. Then, he paused what he'd been doing to hack into SHIELD and see what Junior Agent Clint Barton had been up to as of late.
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'You're going by Aleksander, now?' Clint had written in his brief response after Tony had told him about his relocation and identity change. 'You don't look like an Aleksander. Who will ever believe that?'
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'People will believe my name is whatever I tell them it is,' was Tony's rebuttal. 'And I'm good at languages and accents. I wasn't actually the one who came up with the name, though. That was my new roommate. She's posing as my sister while she heals from an injury.'
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'Aw, replacement, no. How could you replace me? Was it because she's prettier than me? Be honest.'
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'No one is prettier than you, C. But she could kick your ass at GTA any day of the week.'
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'You take that back, you filthy liar.'
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Having been raised as an asset rather than a person, there were many things Tony didn't quite understand about the world. He was learning - being a genius certainly helped with that - but it was rather a lot of catching up to do. That being said, he did know a fair bit about injury, some from personal experience, and he was pretty sure that healing from gunshot wounds took a good amount of time. This was likely especially true when said wounds were treated by someone untrained in medicine. Certainly, such recovery should be taking longer than Natalia's seemed to be progressing.
Either that, or she was even better at acting like she was fine than Tony had guessed. (And Tony was already sure she was better at it than anyone else he'd met, so that seemed improbable.)
It had barely been six weeks and if Tony hadn't known how injured Natalia had been, he never would have guessed in the first place. He had assumed her attempts to help with their move and being able to walk around at all had only been due to a combination of strong pain medications and determination. Now, he was starting to consider that maybe she had been starting to feel a little better only five days after the fact.
"If you have a question, Antoshka, you should just ask," her voice broke into his thoughts. She looked over from where she sat doing gentle stretches. U lingered nearby, a bottle of water in claw. The bot had become rather solicitous of the woman since her injury and she bore his attentions with patient amusement.
Tony turned his gaze back to the circuit board he was working on, embarrassed to have been caught staring. "I was just thinking that you seemed to be healing quickly," he admitted.
"And this is a bad thing?" she asked, canting her head to one side.
"No!" Tony exclaimed. "God, no, it's just…"
Natalia decided to take pity on him. "The Red Room did not have patience for their highly trained assassins to take weeks or months or even years to heal from severe trauma," she told him. "So, they found a means to expedite the process, among other things. I'm sure Hydra was much the same."
"That's true," he said, recognizing the validity of the statement as she pointed it out. "The Asset has enhanced strength and senses, and he heals even faster than you are."
The look she gave him then was inscrutable and lasted long enough that he started to grow uncomfortable under the weight of it. Before he could ask the reason behind the stare, she went back to her stretches.
"I'll be fine, Tony," she assured him warmly. "I've got you and U to look after me, right?"
"And U at least takes his responsibilities very seriously," Tony agreed with a smile as U spun around excitedly to retrieve Natalia a second bottle of water. Still, the brunet couldn't help but feel that he'd missed something.
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A couple weeks later, Natalia had resumed heading out on random jobs that sometimes lasted days or weeks and other times only hours. The only notable difference was that she let Tony know she was going to be gone before she left instead of just disappearing without a word. Tony also found that he worried a bit for her in a way he hadn't before. He knew that she could handle herself - certainly better than he could - but he worried, anyway. Tony supposed it was just part of being friends with another person.
Tony never really stopped his own routine of hacking into places he shouldn't be and selling valuable information to those willing to pay for it (one gentleman of questionable repute paid rather handsomely for several documents to be altered). He still checked in on Clint regularly, hacking into SHIELD to keep tabs on him any time the archer was out of contact.
What hadn't returned to normal was Tony's newfound reluctance to leave the apartment. The hours he had lost troubled him. What had he done during that time? Why couldn't he remember? Would he even want to?
Of one thing Tony felt reasonably certain: Hydra had done something to him. Something that he didn't remember and for which he'd yet to discover any digitized files. Assuming there were any digitized files - or any files at all. There was almost nothing. Just a few scattered mentions of the boy he'd been, record of an agent's child with a rival agent who'd been marked 'terminated' in big red letters, documentation of a gifted youth being trained up within the ranks.
Hydra's documentation on him didn't even list his name. He was simply Asset #492, sometimes 'the mechanic' but more often just another tool amidst hundreds.
Legally, he didn't even exist.
Sometimes, Tony wondered if maybe he didn't.
Maybe he was an anomaly, some sort of glitch caused by a fault in the coding that governed reality. There was already a person with a brilliant mind and his face, what use was there for two of him? Stark had come first, so Tony was undoubtedly the duplicate. Perhaps the reason that Tony had no place in the world was because he wasn't meant to be in it.
Tony shoved back from his desk, causing U to turn from the collection of nuts and screws he was sorting with an inquisitive beep. He waved the bot off and continued determinedly toward the door. There he paused, hand hesitating at his side.
He was being ridiculous, again. Obviously, he couldn't just stay in that apartment forever. He'd gone out hundreds of times before without incident. There was no reason to expect he'd just randomly start losing time, now.
Except that maybe it had happened before. Maybe it had happened and he just couldn't remember. Perhaps-
Gritting his teeth, frustrated by his own wandering thoughts, Tony yanked open the door and left the apartment. It was still early in the day, the air a bit crisp. He zipped the front of his sweatshirt and shoved his hands into his pockets.
For a while, he just followed the sidewalk, putting thought to which direction he was going only when he reached a crosswalk. Eventually, the smells from a coffee shop managed to grab his attention and Tony went inside.
Several long sips into the cup and Tony was starting to feel better. He seriously considered that he may have been under-caffeinated. Had he developed a caffeine addiction? Tony honestly hadn't thought much about it.
His musings upon his relationship to caffeine in general and coffee in particular were not so distracting that he failed to notice the black sedan that slowed as it approached him then lurched to a stop as he passed. Tony turned just enough to watch through a window as the driver somehow shimmied the car into an open space. A large curly-haired man climbed out, barely checking traffic before darting across, already shouting.
"Boss! Hey, boss!" he shouted.
Tony glanced around hoping that maybe he wasn't the focus of the man's attention. He was the most likely target in this scenario, however. And since Tony didn't have any employees, let alone a driver, that meant one thing.
"Mr. Stark!" the man quieted down a bit as he managed to catch up. Not quite quiet enough, of course, as a few people glanced over, but it was the thought that counted or something.
"Um," said Tony, staring at the man over his coffee. When had Stark even gotten into town? How had he missed that?
"What are you doing here, boss? Pepper is going to kill you," the man informed him, taking him by an elbow and steering him back towards where he'd parked his vehicle. "Honestly, it's a good thing I found you so easily. She will kill you if you're late to this presentation. Kill you dead."
"Pepper?" Tony managed. He'd already pieced together that this man had to be Stark's bodyguard and personal driver Harold Hogan, but he hadn't the slightest idea who 'Pepper' was supposed to be. Was she a girlfriend? (Unlikely, Stark's relationships tended to be very public.) Was she the person in charge of whatever presentation Stark couldn't be late to?
"Yeah, Pepper," Hogan said, raising his brows. "Your PA? Practically runs your life, makes sure you don't kill yourself forgetting to eat?"
"Oh. Miss Potts." He noted 'Pepper' as Virginia's nickname for future reference as Hogan brought him up beside the car. The man was giving him a seriously concerned look.
"Aw, geez - you're a lot more hungover than you look, aren't you? No wonder you went wandering off for a good cuppa joe. Chug that. And get in the car. I'll have you back to the hotel in no time. A hot shower, another four cups of coffee, you'll be good as new." As he talked, he opened the door for Tony and proceeded to usher him inside the vehicle.
"Wait, no," Tony finally thought to protest. Honestly, why did he let himself get into these situations? "I'm not-"
"Arno, please get into the car," Hogan said. "Please. I'm not too fond of Pepper murdering me, either, you know. I'll cover for you - you know that. Best as I can, anyway. But this thing is really important. If there was ever a thing to be on time for, boss, this is it."
"Right," Tony relented, for lack of a better option. The man had yet to realize - or even suspect, from the look of things - that he wasn't Stark. Granted, the guy seemed pretty frazzled, so he could probably be forgiven. That meant, at least for the moment, that Tony could retain the secret of his identity. Namely that he wasn't Stark, but rather the man's double. It could still prove useful, assuming he managed to pull it off without anyone the wiser.
Nerves had Tony downing his coffee faster than he had originally intended. The beverage scalded his mouth in the best way possible. By the time Hogan had pulled up in front of the hotel Stark must have been staying in, Tony had started picking at the seam of the cup. The door opened before the driver could jump out and Tony found himself face to face with a stern-looking strawberry blonde in a pantsuit and heels.
"Arno, for god's sake," she admonished, taking the cup from him and motioning him out of the car. Hogan sent him a sympathetic look in the rear view mirror. "One time - if you could be on your best behavior, just one time." She seemed stressed; it made Tony feel guilty even though he wasn't actually the one making her job difficult.
"Sorry, Pepper," he said, hesitating only the briefest moment over her name.
The woman let out a weary sigh as she looked at him. "Please just go up and get ready," she requested, gesturing towards the hotel.
Since she was actively watching, Tony had no choice but to walk into the hotel. He felt a lot like an errant school boy - which was especially odd, seeing as how Tony had never attended a single day of school in his life. Maybe it was a special ability of hers.
Tony did his best not to look as out of place as he felt while walking through the hotel lobby. As he approached the elevators, he wondered which floor he should go to in order to appear as though he was going to 'his' room. Then, he noticed the top floor was simply labeled 'P' which answered that question. Obviously, a man of Stark's stature would be staying in the penthouse.
There was a problem, of course. He couldn't even go to the penthouse floor without a key-card, which he didn't have for obvious reasons. If anyone was paying attention to where he was going - and people were definitely paying attention to him, far more than he liked - then they would notice if he went to the wrong floor. So, how-
"Did you forget your key, boss?"
Tony did his best not to startle as Hogan spoke up from just outside the elevator cab. Clearly, it was a good thing Hydra had decided against using him for spy work because he was a mess. "Um, yeah," Tony said. "Must have left it in the room."
"Not a problem. Pepper made sure I had a spare for you, just in case," Hogan told him amiably, taking out the key-card in question and swiping it in the slot before hitting the button.
So, it seemed he would be getting into the penthouse, after all. "Thanks," he mumbled. Maybe he could hide in the closet or something. Or climb out the window. Yeah, that would be normal and safe.
Apparently unable to select another floor while the penthouse was selected, Hogan rode up with Tony, keeping up the friendly chatter the entire way. Tony honestly couldn't have said what the man was talking about as he was more focused on thinking of a way out of the whole mess while remaining under the radar. The doors opened and Tony distractedly returned Hogan's goodbye as he stepped out into the suite.
That hotel room was nicer than any space Tony had ever been in before. The elevator opened into a living space, complete with sofa and massive television, what appeared to be a rather lavish kitchenette at the far end. Two steps lead up and into the bedroom with its California king-sized bed and massive wardrobe. He couldn't see the bathroom from where he was standing, but Tony was certain that it was ridiculous, as well.
"A person could live here," he muttered to himself. He had taken several careful steps into the room, unable to help but gawk at his surroundings. Giving himself a mental shake, Tony turned his thoughts to the problem at hand. Before he could decide upon his best option for getting out of the hotel unseen, the elevator pinged and the doors slid open.
He whirled around, feeling like he was moving through mud. Stepping out from the elevator cab was Arno Stark himself wearing clothes that had clearly spent the night in a pile on the floor. The man's blue eyes widened as they met Tony's, his mouth dropping open.
Tony didn't wait for the man to say anything. He launched himself at the nearest window and yanked it open, not even slowing as his hand caught on the latch.
By the time Stark had stuck his head out after him, Tony had managed to scale the remaining wall up to the roof and quickly made his escape.
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To be continued...
