I wasn't expecting all the love for Maggie's wing moorings, you guys are too sweet ❤
Just a reminder that there is an ITSOYW playlist on YouTube! Head over and look up 'emmagnetised in the shadow of your wings' and it should be the first result. I've decided Maggie's anthem is going to be 'Victorious' by Wolfmother, and I've also listened to 'My Name is Thunder' approximately a zillion times.
May 8, 2010
Washington D.C.
Maggie and Pepper took the jet to D.C., beating Tony and Happy. They'd spent the rest of the night in preparations with the very well paid Stark Industries lawyers.
Now, Maggie stood in a small huddle with Tony, Pepper, and the SI legal consultants in the lobby of the senate office building, all of them sipping coffee from paper cups. They'd just come out on a break after the first hour and a half of the hearing, and it was going pretty much as expected - there'd been questions about the Iron Man suit's capabilities, and about Tony's own capabilities and motivations.
Maggie sipped her coffee and smoothed down her jacket - she wore a more sober suit today.
Tony leaned against the wall nursing his coffee. He caught Maggie's eye and raised his eyebrows. "So how's everything going with the Expo? No disasters overnight?"
"No, it's going great," she reassured him. "The food vendors had a contract issue but I know Pepper's sorting it out." The woman in question glanced out of the corner of her eye at them, still deep in discussion with one of the lawyers. "The opening ceremony was a big success, and the first exhibitions are ready to open tomorrow."
Tony nodded. "Good. Great."
"Mr Stark," said one of the lawyers, trying to draw his boss's attention back to the matter at hand. "It's very important that when the senators ask about the chain of command that you reassert that you have made many connections throughout the Armed Forces, and…" he continued giving carefully-worded legal instructions, and Tony nodded along as he sipped his coffee, but Maggie could not imagine him repeating those words in the courtroom. And the lawyer knew it too, if his despairing expression was anything to go by.
Truthfully, Maggie didn't know how they were going to get out of this one. The US Government moved slow, but now that they'd actually called Tony in for a hearing she wondered how Tony could continue on in his role as privatized vigilante superhero.
She'd done her best as the Wyvern to protect Iron Man, keeping an eye out for potential threats and for other attempts at suit-making. But as Maggie Stark, she wasn't sure how she could help.
When they were called back into the hearing, Maggie re-took her seat in the row with the SI legal consultants, just behind Tony. And he was in fine form now: Senator Stern had to bang the gavel to get his attention, and when he turned around with a: "Yes, dear?" the courtroom dissolved into laughter.
"Can I have your attention?" Stern asked, annoyed.
"Absolutely."
They set off again, Tony cracking jokes and deflecting. Maggie tapped her fingers against her knee, watching them spar back and forth with a blank expression. Senator Stern was trying to classify Iron Man as a weapon, and they argued over semantics for a while.
The hearing chamber was a grand place, with high ceilings and marble walls, and the eight senators on the Armed Services Committee sat along a long mahogany desk, raised above the rest of the room. Cameras flashed, and at Maggie counted at least five film cameras recording from multiple angles.
Tony cocked his head when Stern asked him how he would define Iron Man. "It's a… hm, it's a high tech prosthesis."
Maggie couldn't help but crack a smile at that. The snapping of camera shutters increased, and she struggled to control her expression. If anything, this hearing was more about image than legality, and she needed to be the sober, responsible sibling here.
But then Stern came out with: "My priority is to get the Iron Man weapon turned over to the people of the United States of America," and she could not have smiled if she tried.
"Well you can forget it," Tony said easily. His voice was low and calm, utterly confident in the face of Stern's smiling authoritarianism. "I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself, which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending on what state you're in." Giggles erupted through the chamber. Tony shrugged one shoulder. "Can't have it."
Maggie ran a hand over her jaw, peering at the senators.
Stern scowled. "Look, I'm no expert-"
"In prostitution, of course not, you're a senator, come on!" Tony crowed, turning to actually wave at the crowd behind him, as if he was on stage. He met Pepper's eyes and she shook her head at him, but then he glanced at Maggie and saw her hiding her smile behind her hand. He grinned and turned back.
"I'm no expert in weapons," Stern persisted, "but we have someone here who is an expert on weapons. I'd now like to call Justin Hammer, our current primary weapons contractor."
When Maggie spotted Justin Hammer approaching the desk, with his charcoal suit and glasses and his coiffed hair, she wondered if her eyes could fall out of her head if she rolled them too hard. Hammer Industries had taken over the defense contract after Stark Industries shut down their weapons manufacturing division last year. Maggie had known Justin for years, since he'd been running in the weapons manufacturing circles for a decade and she'd had the unfortunate pleasure of working with him on occasion. As a woman in the engineering field she had to put up with a lot of dismissiveness and general assholery from certain men, but no one had quite the annoying touch that Justin Hammer did.
As Hammer took his seat at the desk, Tony leaned into the mic. "Let the record reflect that I observed Mr Hammer entering the chamber, and I am wondering if and when any actual expert will also be in attendance."
Maggie coughed behind her hand to hide her laugh. That was the other thing about Hammer - he had the money and the talk of your typical Silicon Valley CEO, but absolutely no natural instinct for engineering.
Hammer took the insult in his stride. He laughed, then leaned in to his own mic. "Absolutely. I'm no expert. I defer to you, Anthony. You're the wonder boy."
Tony was busy staring at Hammer in disbelief, so Maggie looked over her shoulder and met Pepper's eyes. Anthony? Pepper just shook her head. Keep it cool.
Hammer looked up. "Senator, if I may." He stood up, taking his microphone with him as he turned to face the seated crowd. "I may well not be an expert. But you know who was the expert?" Hammer turned to face Tony, smiling. "Your dad. Howard Stark."
Hammer started waxing poetic about Howard, calling him the father to us all, and a lion, and after a moment Tony glanced over his shoulder at Maggie. They shared a moment of eye contact, utterly serious this time. Everyone in the courtroom had sobered.
"We all know why we're here," Hammer continued, knowing he had the room's full attention. Tony turned back, slouched in his chair and irritation written in his posture. Maggie crossed one leg over the other slowly, jaw clenched.
"In the last six months, Anthony Stark, with the help of his lovely sister" - he flashed a smile at Maggie and her lip curled. A few people glanced over, as if realizing for the first time that she was there - "has created a sword. With untold possibilities."
Hammer frowned. "And yet he insists it's a shield. He asks us to trust him as we cower behind it." Maggie saw Tony bring his clasped hands to cover his mouth. "I wish I were comforted Anthony, I really do. I'd love to leave my door unlocked when I leave the house. But you know, this ain't Canada."
Maggie's head dropped back, and she took comfort in the blankness of the ceiling for a moment.
"You know, we live in a world of grave threats," Hammer said, his face creased in false concern. "Threats that Mr Stark will not always be able to foresee."
Maggie glanced back at him, and for a moment Hammer met her gaze. She gave him a sharp, sweet smile. That's what I'm here for.
Hammer turned back to the Senators. "Thank you. God bless Iron Man, God bless America."
Lukewarm applause filled the chamber, and Hammer took his seat again. Maggie reached up to rub her temples, hoping to ward off the beginnings of a headache.
"That is well said, Mr Hammer," Stern smiled. "The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to the chamber."
"Rhodey?" Tony blurted, and he and Maggie swung around at the same time as Rhodey, in his Air Force blues, strode into the chamber. Tony went up to greet him and they shook hands, murmuring for a moment. Maggie stayed in her seat, but frowned at Rhodey as he walked by her. He just shook his head at her, then took a seat at the hearing table.
Rhodey had compiled a report on Iron Man for the Department of Defense. Maggie knew this, but when Stern got him to read a specific anti-Iron Man paragraph she sighed and sank down a little in her seat. Rhodey, to his credit, tried to point out the flaws in this, but Stern steamrolled him.
And then there was imagery.
Maggie straightened in her seat as the display screens came to life, showing satellite imagery of what looked like a base of some kind.
Rhodey, grudgingly, began to speak. "Intelligence suggests that the devices seen in these photos are in fact attempts at making manned copies of Mr Stark's suit."
Maggie squinted. She couldn't make out much from the screen, but either way - she'd been working hard behind the scenes trying to put an end to shit like this, and she didn't understand why the US Government was using this relatively new intelligence as a way to discredit Tony. Well, she knew why. She just thought it was stupid.
She cocked her head as images cycled through the screens, suddenly very focused.
"This has been corroborated by our allies and local intelligence on the ground," Rhodey continued. "Indicating that these suits are quite possibly, at this moment, operational."
Maggie frowned. She'd heard nothing to suggest that. For a brief, insane second she opened her mouth to say so - but then remembered who and where she was. Her mouth clicked shut and she sat back, gritting her teeth.
But then Tony leaned over, doing something with his Stark phone. "Hold on one second, buddy. Let me see something here." He tapped the screen twice, and then the courtroom display screens flashed with a black box that read: WELCOME, MR STARK. Maggie rolled her eyes.
"Oh, boy I'm good," Tony murmured. "I commandeered your screens. I need 'em. Time for a little transparency."
He hijacked the hearing, cycling through video clips of other countries' attempts at making mechanised suits - all with disastrous results. Maggie stared at the screens, then slowly looked back at Tony. Huh. The corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. Turns out Tony had been doing a little snooping of his own.
The senators and Hammer were scrambling, trying to stop the footage, but Tony had completely taken over their screens.
When the screen switched to show a clip with the Hammer Industries logo in the corner, and Justin Hammer himself shouting instructions at a man in a metal suit, Maggie scowled. She hadn't known about that attempt. Maybe I should be looking closer to home. That had been her problem with Obie - she'd been too focused on the dangers overseas that she'd missed the monster lurking beneath her feet.
"Justin you're on TV, focus up," Tony called. Senators leaned in to murmur in each other's ears, frowning. The entire room was abuzz.
The metal suit on screen suddenly twisted 180 degrees, and a muffled scream emitted from the speakers. Maggie winced.
"Oh, shit!" The Hammer on screen exclaimed. "Oh, shit!"
Finally, the Hammer in the courtroom disconnected the power cable to the screen and stormed back to the desk, his eyes downcast.
"Wow," Tony drawled. "Yeah, I'd say most countries, five, ten years away. Hammer Industries? Twenty." Rhodey smirked.
"I'd like to point out that that test pilot survived," Hammer said once he'd reached the mic. He looked ruffled.
Stern was on his feet. "I think we're done, is the point that he's making, I-I don't think there's any reason-"
"The point is," Tony cut in, his chin on his hand. "You're welcome, I guess."
"For what?" Stern glared.
"Because I'm your nuclear deterrent," Tony said, as if it was obvious. Maggie settled back in her chair, mind churning. "It's working. We're safe. America is secure. You want my property? You can't have it. But I did you a big favor!" Tony stood up and turned to face the crowd.
Oh, here we go, Maggie sighed, though she couldn't help her smile.
Tony cocked his head. "I've successfully privatized world peace." He lifted both hands in the peace V, and like the end of a magic show everyone in the room shot to their feet to give him a standing ovation.
Maggie stayed seated, unable to help her smile. Applause rippled through the room.
"What more do you want?" Tony called. "For now?" He began striding down the main aisle. "I tried to play ball with these ass clowns!" He gestured back at the Senators, and Stern said into the mic:
"Fuck you, Mr Stark. Fuck you, buddy."
Laughing, Tony returned to the desk to pick up his sunglasses as Stern adjourned the session. On his way past Maggie he lifted his hand to her, eyebrows raised, and unable to stop herself Maggie gave him a hi-five. Rhodey, still seated, raised an eyebrow at her and she could only shrug. He's my big brother.
Tony slid on his sunglasses and then made his way back out of the courtroom like he'd just won an award, shaking hands and flaunting for the camera. The hearing devolved into cheers and applause.
In the chaos as everyone craned their necks to watch him leave, Maggie slipped through the crowd toward the deactivated display screen and stole the data stick that Hammer had been using for his presentation. Might not be much, but it'll be a start.
She slipped out a side entrance, and no one saw her leave.
Russia
Alone in his late father's basement, Ivan Vanko put the finishing touches on his masterpiece: his own weapon, powered by a functional miniaturised arc reactor.
He powered up the electrified whips, and the crackling blue light reflected in his eyes.
May 9, 2010
On the jet back to New York, Tony locked himself in the bathroom for a moment to check his blood toxicity. He flinched at the sharp jab of the finger-prick, then winced at the readout on the device: 21%.
Yikes. He wiped his finger on a paper towel. He'd do an analysis on the progression of the Palladium poisoning when he got back to Malibu, but he didn't really want to think about it for now.
He stashed the blood scanner back in his pocket, then stepped back into the main fuselage of the jet. Pepper sat at one of the desk seats, tapping away at her Blackberry. Happy was asleep near the front of the plane. Maggie had stayed behind in D.C., saying she had something to work on (unbeknownst to Tony, Maggie was planning to stake out Justin Hammer while he was in the city).
Tony dropped down opposite Pepper. The sun slanted into the jet from the west, turning her hair orange-gold. "What, are you going to give me the silent treatment forever?"
Pepper sighed and held up a hand. "I am not ready to talk about… whatever that was in that hearing." She chewed the inside of her cheek, then set down her phone and leaned in. "Tony, I actually wanted to talk to you about something else."
He leaned in as well, matching her posture. "Whats up, buttercup?"
A brief scowl crossed her face before the worried expression returned. "I want to talk about Maggie."
His eyebrow rose. "What about her?"
"She… keeps getting hurt. I noticed it a few months ago. Whenever she leaves on one of her holidays, sometimes she comes back injured. Like… this last time, she came back with a split lip, and some kind of burn on her jaw. And she broke her rib last month! And other times, I think she's hurt but she won't admit it. Haven't you noticed?"
Tony blinked. "I guess. I just thought… I don't know, that she was getting hurt. She's an active person with a prosthetic leg, it happens." But even as he said it, he didn't quite believe it. He had noticed. He was just so used to Maggie keeping things close to the chest that he hadn't bothered to push too hard. His brow furrowed. How long had this been going on?
Pepper's lips pressed together. "It's not just that. I know that Maggie's always been her own person, but recently… I don't know, she's been secretive. More than usual." She sighed. "I don't really know what I'm saying. But I'm concerned."
Tony leaned back in his seat, rubbing his jaw. He'd been so caught up in his own secrets…
Pepper's fingers twisted. "I thought she might be in a relationship with someone," she said cautiously. "Who was hurting her."
He glanced up. "Maggie would never-"
"You'd be surprised," Pepper cut him off sharply, but then continued. "But I asked her, and I'm less sure about that now. She seemed surprised when I mentioned it. But she also didn't explain what was really going on. And I know she's an adult, but I thought I'd bring it up to you. So… I don't know." She shook her head.
"No, thank you," Tony said. He thought back. He and Maggie had mended their relationship after he came back from Afghanistan, but he realized that he'd gotten used to her secrecy. He knew why she had quit Stark Industries the first time, but there was still so much she didn't share with him. Maggie kept secrets, and Maggie disappeared every now and then. That's just the way she was. And somewhere along the line, Tony had stopped wondering why.
And if he… if he didn't have long left, he wanted to make sure his sister would be okay without him.
He swallowed down a lump. "I'll look into it."
May 10, 2010
The next day, on the balcony of his hotel room, Tony called Maggie. She picked up almost instantaneously, her face appearing on the screen of his Stark phone. She looked to be outside somewhere - he could see tree branches above her head.
"What is that," she said by way of greeting, making a face at the chlorophyll concoction he was finishing off.
"Smoothie."
"Since when do you drink smoothies?"
"Since… recently," he said. He supposed she would have noticed eventually, what with his necessary intake increasing every day along with the Palladium in his blood.
Maggie cocked her head, eyeing him as best as she could through a screen. "Hey," she said in a softer voice. "Are you doing okay?"
"What a coincidence, that's what I was going to ask you."
"I'm not the one who essentially flipped off the US Government and is now… drinking smoothies?" Maggie frowned. "And you've been weird the past few weeks."
His heart skipped. "Weird?"
"Yes, weird." She squinted. "And not your normal inventing weird, either. Is everything going okay with the Mark V design?"
The emergency suit, designed to look like a suitcase, was still in development. Maggie had helped to throw around some ideas, but Tony had mostly worked on it alone. It was hard to hide the symptoms of Palladium poisoning from Maggie if she was around all the time.
"Never been better, but this isn't about me," he deflected. "I just… I know we've both been busy with the Expo and SI, but… how are you? Like, in your life." He grimaced at the phrasing, then drained the rest of the chlorophyll smoothie.
"In my life?" she questioned.
"I just mean… everything's okay, right? You're not in trouble?"
Her eyes narrowed. "You've been talking to Pepper."
Tony sighed. "Yes, but I mean… it's not just that. You've been taking a lot of absences from SI-"
"I'm a consultant, that's within my remit-"
"But where are you going? When you do go?"
Maggie shrugged. "Lots of different places. I like to travel, Tony."
He let out a breath. Maybe that's all it is. "Maybe you should bring me along on one of those trips." The idea made his heart ache for a moment, and he frowned. Slowly being poisoned to death was making him sentimental.
She eyed him cautiously, and he could see her thoughts whirring behind her eyes. Then she said: "Sure."
Tony nodded slowly. Then, without really thinking about it, the question he'd been planning to ask Maggie for weeks now spilled out. "Do you want to be CEO?"
She blinked, utterly dumbstruck for a moment. "Do I… what?"
"Do you want to be CEO," he repeated. "Of Stark Industries."
For a few moments they just stared at each other through their phones. Maggie's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
Finally, she squinted. "What's in that smoothie?"
He laughed. "I'm serious, Maggot. I'm offering you the job. Want it?"
"You don't want it?" she questioned. "Why?"
"Doesn't matter. Want to be CEO?"
"I…" he saw her finally, seriously, consider the question, and he could see that for her, the answer was as easy as breathing. "No."
Tony took in the guilt and confusion that warred across her face. "I know."
Her expression turned into a glare. "Why would you ask if you already know?"
"Just to be sure," he said. "And it's okay. I know… even with the changes the company's made, I know it's not what you want. And that is okay. I only want for you to be happy, Maggie." His voice went warm.
Maggie took a few breaths, still processing the question. Then her eyes focused on him. "What's wrong, Tony?"
He held her gaze for a moment before he blinked. "Nothing. Just… thinking about the future."
She sighed. "Well don't think too hard. You've got plenty of time to head hunt, if that's what you want. Don't make any rash decisions."
"Right," he said, and alarmingly his voice wavered. He coughed, then rushed out: "Love you, kid," before he hung up.
Maggie stared at her phone for a moment. What on earth?
But she had work to do. She returned to the software on her phone which ran the listening device she'd planted in the meeting room where Justin Hammer was currently discussing upcoming projects with the Secretary of Defense. This meeting, like all his others, was startlingly boring. And it didn't appear he had any hope of making a functional Iron Man suit anytime in the near future, though it was clear he wished to.
Maggie sighed and resigned herself to suffering another half hour of listening to Justin Hammer talk.
May 12, 2010
Finally back in his workshop at home, Tony wasted no time in greeting J.A.R.V.I.S. and the robots (and the row of Iron Man suits displayed along the wall). But it wasn't all good times.
"How many ounces a day of this gobbledegook am I supposed to drink?" he asked J.A.R.V.I.S. as he measured out yet another chlorophyll smoothie.
"We are up to 80 ounces a day to counteract the symptoms, sir."
Yikes, Tony thought as he drained his glass. And it only did a half-ass job of counteracting the symptoms anyway. The dark, angular lines radiating out from around the arc reactor in his chest were a permanent feature now.
"Let's check Palladium levels," he said, spiking his thumb once more on the blood scanner. A moment later the red number flashed before his eyes: 24%.
Yikes.
"Blood toxicity, 24%" J.A.R.V.I.S. announced. "It appears that the continued use of the Iron Man suit is accelerating your condition." J.A.R.V.I.S. brought up a simulation scan of Tony's chest, showing how the Palladium radiated out from the Arc Reactor like a tree taking root.
"Another core has been depleted."
Wincing, Tony lifted his shirt and slid out the Arc Reactor. The core slid out, smoking and blackened. "God, they're running out quick."
"I have run simulations on every known element, and none can serve as a viable replacement for the Palladium core."
Tony replaced the core with a new, sleek metal one and then slid the reactor back into his chest.
"You are running out of both time and options," J.A.R.V.I.S. continued, his voice calm but firm. Tony was glad he'd been able to give the AI some form of personality. It had helped that day in February, when Tony had realized that the Palladium was poisoning him. When Tony had realized he was dying. J.A.R.V.I.S. had been good to have around, then.
Tony felt the arc reactor click back into the housing in his chest, bringing both life and certain death.
"Unfortunately, the device that's keeping you alive is also killing you." He eyed the strange, almost bluish lines around the arc reactor. "Miss Potts is approaching."
Tony dropped his shirt.
"I recommend that you inform her and Ms-"
"Mute," Tony called. J.A.R.V.I.S. shut off, and in the next moment Pepper strode into the workshop, her eyes steely.
"Is this a joke?" she called.
He reached for his smoothie glass and tipped it back.
"What are you thinking?"
"What?" he asked, when the smoothie was finished and he had no further excuse to avoid conversation.
"What are you thinking?" she repeated, storming closer.
"Hey, I'm thinking I'm busy, and you're… angry. About something."
They flowed back into their usual rhythm. Tony stood up and started moving around the workshop, messing with his holodesigns (which now popped up all over the workshop, thanks to his redesign last year) and snarking back at Pepper as she followed him, clipboard in hand, apparently angry that he'd donated the entire modern art collection. To be fair, that had been spontaneous of him, but he'd been looking at one of the art pieces on the wall of his house two weeks ago and thought about the house, and what would happen to it after… after. And then he'd just… made a few calls. Someone else may as well enjoy the art, and it was a good cause.
Tony walked through the manufacturing section of the workshop, putting Dum-E back on task, and the conversation turned to the Expo, and then Stark Industries. Pepper's mind could fit all of it - the Expo, and Stark Industries and its multitude of contracts and concerns, and even Tony as he picked up an Iron Man painting and went to put it up on the wall.
Standing on his drinks counter as he hung up the painting, Tony heard Maggie's voice: Don't make any rash decisions.
Well, he'd already made this decision. He jumped down, facing Pepper. "You do it."
"I do what?"
"Excellent idea," he said, eyes widening as if he'd just had a lightbulb moment. "I just figured this out. You run the company."
Pepper blinked. "Yeah, I'm trying to run the company, but-"
"- well stop trying to do it and do it-"
"-you will not give me the information I need in order to-"
"I need you to do it!" he raised his voice.
"I am trying to do it!" she shouted back.
"Pepper you're not listening to me!"
"No you're not listening to me-"
"I'm trying to make you CEO!"
Silence fell.
"Why won't you let me?" Tony asked as Pepper stared at him. Her anger had completely drained away.
She leaned in, staring at his mouth. "Have you been drinking?"
He almost smiled. Maggie implied the same thing. "Uh, chlorophyll." Pepper still looked dumbstruck, so he stepped toward her and took her hands. "I hereby irrevocably appoint you chairman and CEO of Stark Industries, effective immediately."
She continued to stare.
Tony glanced away, then nodded to himself. "Yeah, done deal. Okay?" he patted Pepper's hands then stepped away. Dum-E had rolled into the room, a tray with a bottle of champagne and two glasses on it, as Tony had instructed earlier.
"I've actually given this a fair amount of thought, believe it or not," he called to the silent, staring Pepper. "Doing a bit of headhunting, so to speak. Trying to figure out who a worthy successor would be." He picked up the champagne bottle and struggled with the cork for a moment. "And then I realized… it's you." The cork popped out and he began pouring. "It's always been you." He glanced over his shoulder at Pepper. Her look of outright shock had faded into something like bewilderment.
"Does Maggie know about this?" she breathed.
Tony arched an eyebrow at her. "You really think Maggie wants to be CEO?"
Pepper frowned. "I honestly have no idea what Maggie wants."
"Well, she doesn't," he said. "And I'm sure when I tell her the good news, she'll be happy about it. She trusts you."
Pepper said down on the couch behind her, not taking her eyes off him.
"I thought there'd be a legal issue, but actually I'm capable of appointing my successor." He brought over the two glasses, and Pepper looked up at him. "My successor being you."
He held out the glass, but instead of taking it Pepper's face finally broke into a wide, disbelieving smile. She looked down.
"Congratulations?" he offered. He shook the glass at her. "Take it, just take it."
"I don't know what to think," she finally said, her voice shaky.
"Don't think, drink."
She eyed him, smiling for real now, and raised her glass to his.
Maggie arrived back in LA that afternoon, since Hammer had left D.C. and she had no other business on the east coast. She drove herself to the mansion, and found Tony and Pepper waiting for her in the living room. This wasn't unusual, since Pepper was around the mansion sometimes more than Maggie these days. But the bright smile on Pepper's face seemed new.
"What happened," Maggie said the moment she saw Tony and Pepper standing together, smiling at her.
Tony's eyes gleamed. "Maggie, allow me to introduce you to your new boss." he cast a sweeping gesture at Pepper, who rolled her eyes at him.
"My new…" Maggie's eyes flicked to Pepper, and then she gasped. "You didn't."
Pepper's smile flickered, but Tony just nodded. "I did."
Maggie gaped for a moment, processing, before the gape turned into a brilliant grin. "Oh, Pepper, congratulations!" Pepper's smile returned full force. "You'll be incredible!" She shook her head. "No offence Tony, but she's going to do a much better job than you."
"I know," Tony said, his smile small and soft. "That's why I picked her."
Maggie darted across the living room and scooped Pepper into a hug, whirling her around once before setting her down. Pepper laughed at her enthusiasm.
Maggie looked Pepper up and down. Thank god I don't have to do it.
Pepper must have seen what Maggie was thinking, because she laughed again. "I hope you know, Maggie, that I care a lot about the company, and I'll take good care of it. And you'll always have any job you want at SI." She turned to Tony. "You too." She glanced back at Maggie. "You know he said he wants to be jobless for a while?"
"Tony, are you having a midlife crisis?" Maggie asked, only half-serious. "Next thing you know you'll…" she thought of all the mid-life-crisis stereotypes, but Tony had already done most of them by the time he turned twenty five.
"No, I think I'm finally setting things right," Tony said, still smiling. He clapped Maggie on the shoulder. "Since I'm granting wishes today, is there anything you want?"
Still overwhelmed by the announcement, she missed the darkness behind Tony's eyes.
She laughed. "I wish for three more wishes."
Pepper let out a breath and collected herself. "Well, now that we've told Maggie, you and I," she nodded at Tony, "should head to Stark Industries. We've got feathers to ruffle."
Tony nodded. "I'll call Happy."
The next week was a flurry of activity. As predicted, the announcement of Pepper taking over the CEO and chairman role ruffled feathers - but more so in the press than in SI, because anyone who was worth anything in the company knew that Pepper was perfect for the role. Still it was a busy time with board meetings, press meetings, and the entire world trying to adjust to the fact that Tony Stark, superhero and long-time CEO, had given the job to his PA.
Once more everyone turned to Maggie for her reaction, sure that she would be furious at being ousted somehow. But Maggie remained fervent in her support for Pepper, and a few pictures of the two of them shaking hands and going out for lunches together finally settled the rumors.
Maggie, for her part, was doing a little corporate espionage. Hammer's data stick had been password protected, but that took Maggie all of three seconds to crack, and then she moved on to creeping her way into the Hammer Industries intranet. She wasn't interested in corporate or domestic espionage, but she didn't like that Hammer Industries and the US Government were trying to steal the Iron Man tech.
She also realized that Tony had made progress that she hadn't, so one evening on a visit to the mansion, as she sat alone in her childhood bedroom, Maggie asked: "J.A.R.V.I.S., can you show me the data that Tony gathered on Hammer Industries for the hearing?"
It was a long shot, but…
"I don't see why not, Ms Stark," J.A.R.V.I.S. responded, and she smiled. Tony hadn't forbidden her from looking at the intelligence. Either he hadn't thought to do so, or he wanted her to have access to it. "May I ask why you wish to view this information?"
Maggie cracked her knuckles and opened her Wyvern computer. "Just curious, I guess."
With Tony's intelligence, and her own work, Maggie was able to make a start.
A week after the hearing, and a day after Hammer's contract with the military got put on indefinite suspension, Maggie broke into Hammer Industries. She'd been able to figure out that Hammer really didn't have much of a hope of replicating the Iron Man suit, but he did have some stolen designs, and a repulsor part which Maggie suspected had been stolen from the Mark II armor after Tony's battle with Stane in Los Angeles.
Maggie strode right into Hammer Industries in the middle of the day, with a cloned security pass and a hat that obscured her face from the cameras. She didn't stay long; she made her way into the R&D wing, stole the repulsor part from a storage cabinet, then logged on to their system from an engineer's computer and completely wiped any data and designs based on the repulsor part. That should set them back some time.
Enough time for her to build a case against Hammer, anyway. She'd already found a few hints of illegal practices on his data stick, and she was in the midst of building a portfolio to give to the police.
She technically wasn't stealing, she told herself as she strode out of the building again. She was just stealing back whatever had been stolen. Now they were free to attempt to replicate Tony's suit using their own creativity. Which isn't likely to happen any time soon.
When Maggie returned to LA she returned to her Wyvern work, alongside helping with the SI transition. She was concerned about Tony, who seemed to be holing himself up in the mansion more and more, but he wouldn't admit that anything was wrong.
Russia
In a snowy alleyway, Ivan Vanko looked down at his forged passport, and the single admission ticket to the Monaco Grand Prix. A smile crossed his face.
Once the ball got rolling on Pepper's takeover, there was really surprisingly little for Tony to do. He had to sit in on the occasional board meeting or conference call, but as ever, Pepper was a powerhouse of efficiency. It meant he had more time alone to work on the Mark V armor in his workshop in peace.
He also had time to pry into Maggie's life.
She could say I like to travel all she wanted, but what Pepper had said had concerned Tony. So with J.A.R.V.I.S.'s help, he began to look into Maggie - and once he started looking, he kept seeing things that concerned him. He found not one but two extra bank accounts that he didn't know about, and those were just the ones he could find. J.A.R.V.I.S. informed him that Maggie had a computer built into what looked like a metal briefcase that she took everywhere, but which she had never allowed J.A.R.V.I.S. access to. She regularly chartered private jets, but the jet had been recorded at airfields where, upon digging, it had never actually been. Almost as if someone was forging flight plans.
Tony couldn't deny that it looked fishy. It would look to an outsider as if Maggie had involved herself in some shady business practices, but Tony didn't think she would do that. He couldn't guess what she was up to. Definitely keeping secrets, though. She'd been hiding things deliberately from J.A.R.V.I.S., and even Tony was finding it hard to look into her activities.
The injuries concerned him. He had J.A.R.V.I.S. catalogue all the CCTV footage from SI and the mansion where Maggie had an injury, and the results were alarming. In the past six months she'd had five visible facial injuries, ranging from a bruise to a scape, and two incidences where she was visibly limping. And she hid them all well. Maybe she's being blackmailed? he wondered as he sifted through the footage.
Tony was distracted by his own life falling apart, but he kept looking into Maggie's secrets. He wanted her to be okay when he was gone.
One evening, once he and Happy finished up sparring, Tony cocked his head at the bodyguard.
"Hey, Happy, you're looking for new responsibilities, right?"
Happy's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean? Is this you firing me?"
"No, but your paranoia continues to astound," Tony laughed. He cleared his throat. "No, I… I was wondering if you'd like to spend some time keeping an eye on Maggie."
"On Maggie?" he queried. "Is she in danger?"
"No, no, well - I don't know, really." Tony pulled off his boxing gloves. "It's only if you're up for it, but I'd appreciate it if you checked in on her. See where she is, if she's with anyone, make sure she's safe."
Happy eyed him shrewdly. "And I take it Maggie doesn't know you're asking me this."
He sighed. "No. She… I think she might need help, Happy, but she's not ready to ask for it. I don't want to ask you to do this, but…"
"I understand," Happy said, his face solemn. "I'll keep an eye on her boss, when I can."
"Thanks, Happy," he said with a sigh.
May 18, 2010
Philadelphia
Phil Coulson walked into a diner in downtown Philadelphia, relieved as the cool airconditioning washed over him. He glanced around, then made a beeline for a booth at the far end of the diner.
The booth in question was occupied by a man in his mid fifties, with salt and pepper hair, glasses, and a shrewd look in his eyes. He smiled as he finished ordering, and when the waitress disappeared into the kitchen Phil slid into the opposite seat in the booth.
The man glanced up and a smile lifted his mouth. "Phil Coulson, as I live and breathe. I was about to shoot you."
"I thought you were just getting slow," Phil smiled, and shook the man's hand when he offered it. "Good to see you, David."
David Marlow was ex-CIA, but had worked a few cases in conjunction with SHIELD back in the day. He worked as a consultant nowadays, but only part time so he could spend time with his newborn grandkid.
"Are you ordering?" David asked, offering the laminated menu. "A coffee?"
"No thanks, I'm trying to cut down on caffeine." Phil folded his hands in front of him on the table and met David's eyes. "What do you know about the Wyvern?"
Agent Barton had done well gathering information on the Wyvern. Two days ago, he had linked several of the Wyvern's cases to information that could only have come from none other than David Marlow, and Coulson had offered to do the interview.
David dropped the menu. "Ah, shit, Phil, why've you got to go after all the good ones? Can't you leave it alone?"
Phil cocked his head. "What do you mean?"
"The Wyvern isn't one of your rogue assassins," David sighed, leaning back in his seat. At least he wasn't denying that he'd been in contact with the Wyvern. Phil had been ready to confront him with Barton's painstaking evidence. "The Wyvern just… gets shit done. I don't see why you or SHIELD would want to take that kind of skill out of circulation. Half the time the Wyvern sorts out the criminals you'd end up having to deal with."
Phil's lips quirked. "We've been getting that impression. Perhaps we want to recruit him." He saw a quirk in the other man's brow and he smiled. "Ah. Her." Barton had suspected as much, and this confirmed it.
David held up a finger. "Now I don't know that! I've never met the Wyvern!"
"But you've been in the game long enough to tell," Phil surmised. "How does she contact you?"
"Encrypted transmissions mostly, real deep web stuff," David waved a hand. "Except for the time she figured out my phone number."
Phil's eyebrows rose. "What else have you picked up about her?"
David sighed. "Phil, I don't know if the Wyvern is the recruiting sort. At first I thought she was working alone, and I even tried to hire her, but… these days I'm more inclined to think it's some kind of team."
"Why's that?'
"The Wyvern works all over the globe. And they don't seem to leave any trace. Resources, tech, travel, combat… not many people working alone could cover all that."
"I can think of a few in SHIELD who could."
"So maybe she's one of yours then." David waved a hand. "Working rogue."
"Could be." The waitress returned with David's food, quirking an eyebrow at Phil, and they waited until she was out of earshot to continue. "So what else have you picked up?"
David sighed as he picked at his fries. "The Wyvern's smarter than me, I knew that straight away. Driven. Resourceful. Was focused on unsolved assassinations and old Soviet stuff early on, so maybe you're looking at a displaced Russian." He frowned. "But… Phil, if you must go after her, don't go in guns blazing. Because the Wyvern… I have a very strong suspicion that she's kind. And that's rare, in our line of work."
Phil cocked an eyebrow. "Kind."
"Yeah," David nodded as he started to cut into his steak. "Like you. Bleeding heart type, you know? She takes most cases for free. I'm still trying to figure out what makes her accept a case, but the real denominating factor is if it's in the common good."
"Interesting." Phil eyed David as he began eating. "Could you contact her on my behalf?"
He smiled. "I think you're great, Phil, but I won't do that for you. Like I said, I don't think she's the type for SHIELD. But I won't warn her about you either, mind, since I don't give help for free these days." He shot Phil a significant look.
Phil nodded and got to his feet. "We'll transfer you your consultancy fee right away."
"Much obliged, Phil." David tipped his head. "And don't go thinking the Wyvern will come easy, if you do chase her. She's got claws, y'know."
Phil straightened his tie. "So I've heard."
Reviews
DBZFAN45: I'm so glad you enjoyed the last chapter and I'm so excited to finally be up to IM2! Also I liked your "You should see the other guy" in response to Pepper being worried about Maggie's injuries, I kinda wish I'd come up with that lmao. Natasha will show up next chapter, I promise!
The1975Love: I'm glad you're excited! Maggie is stepping closer to being the Wyvern, and we're stepping closer to some really fun moments in Iron Man 2 ;)
Wyrleen: A fave chapter! What a compliment! I'm going to call it right now though, I think the end of chapter 20/all of chapter 21 is going to be your favourite chapter ;) And I'm so excited about more Nat/Maggie interactions, I've got so much fun stuff planned for them.