Note: This has honestly been one of the worst years of my life, and I'm slowly crawling out of it. Sorry to have left this hanging for so long, and here's hoping that the chapter after this one doesn't take as many months (hopefully just weeks, crossed fingers)!
I promise you, the delay was less a lack of interest and more a fear that my mental state would color my writing. You don't deserve that, as readers, so I waited until I could be sure that wouldn't happen.
I'm fired up and excited about where this is going and where it's been. Let's start the process of taking down SHIELD!
Chapter Twenty-Six: Solar Eclipse
"Sir?"
Tony comes to with his head pillowed on his arms on the too-low computer desk. His back is bent at an unnatural angle and as soon as he straightens up, his stomach lurches sickeningly.
"Sir, Mr. Stane is requesting entry at the gate. There appears to be a member of the press who is observing and snapping photos whilst speaking on a cellular phone."
"Open it up; s'the lesser of two evils," Tony says blearily. He hopes he's right. "Where's Happy? Should be here by now," he adds, checking his empty wrist for a watch before moving the mouse to wake his computer for the time. It's nearly five PM, which is crazy. He'd decided to take a twenty minute snooze at two. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"Frankly, sir, you needed the rest. Everything you set in motion is incomplete, as yet."
"Yeah, okay," Tony says. "Fuck, this is terrible. How do chronically ill people deal with this shit? I feel like my stomach is about to turn inside-out."
"You do have a fever. There's some medication for that in the-"
"Upstairs bathroom, with the Pepto, yeah. That's what I need Hogan for. Meds might as well be on the moon." He feels shitty, and when he feels shitty, he is shitty. Maybe it's a good thing Emory's not around for this.
"Mr. Hogan is currently detained by the Transportation Security Agency. He appears to have made some comments that were not taken well, according to the preliminary police report." There's a pause, during which Tony tries to decide whether he wants to laugh or cry at this new development, before JARVIS says, "The report states that his companion refused to vouch for whether Mr. Hogan could be dangerous. That companion is currently making his way to the basement by my direction, via the speakers. I will send all further private messaging to your phone, sir."
A chill goes through Tony that has nothing to do with the fever. JARVIS doesn't like to split vocal focus because it goes against the idea that he is Tony's singular 'robot butler.' He hardly ever breaks that illusion. As for Happy, he and Stane have never been friendly, so there's a 50/50 chance that Obie saw the detention as a way to spend an afternoon free of Happy's interference.
It could also be a way to spend an afternoon free of Tony's bodyguard.
He's in no condition to argue for Hogan's release, which means he's on his own. The possibilities spiral out like fear fractals spinning in all directions, and bile shoots the wrong way up Tony's throat. He coughs it back down and gets up to greet his possible adversary.
88888888
"Your expression is exactly as I pictured it," the scientist says, her creased face breaking into a pleased smile. Her accent is solidly Eastern European, but fluid, as though she's long accustomed to speaking English. "As soon as I found out who you were, I couldn't wait to meet you! Come closer, settle in!"
As Harris wheels Emory closer to the desk, the reason for the dimness around that area becomes more clear. Though the room has a higher ceiling at that end, there are no lights on except the lamps beside the desk. Compounding that, the wall to their left is taken up by a large, darkly dyed stained-glass window that lets little of the morning sunlight through. It's hard to make out the design, as though some sort of awning has been constructed on the outside of the building to protect it, with a side effect of blocking most of the light. All she can discern are multiple robed men standing over a line of supplicants with their heads bowed.
Emory's so caught up by the strange window and its looming figures that she's startled when the wheelchair stops a few inches from the desk. She hurriedly looks up, and the scientist leans over and pins Emory with a smile that's halfway between Horror Movie Grandmother and Friendly Librarian. The old woman's soft and pillowy looking bun had looked healthy and slick from the doorway, but up close Emory can see that it's rigid, practically lacquered in place.
"You were in that cave with Tony Stark, weren't you?" their bizarre hostess asks slyly.
Their plan hinges on this woman believing that Tony wouldn't help her. "I haven't seen him since we escaped," Emory says sadly, her voice muffled by the oxygen mask. Her powers hover at the back of her mind, waiting for a strong emotion (it'll be fear, she's certain) to spark into usefulness.
"It's just impossible to hear you, child!" Clapping her stick-like hands, the scientist addresses the number of uniformed 'staff' lurking nearby. "Leave us. I will speak of Sasha with these two. Alone."
A tall, muscular man stops to rest a meaty hand on the old woman's chair. "Babi Iulia, vei fi în-"
"Yes, I'll be safe, yes! Go away, Draga," the woman says, sounding both amused and annoyed. Once her staff had all withdrawn, she adds, "Ten years without any family, you build your own," she shrugs at Emory and Harris. "Too long, and they think they're owed your safety! Ai!"
"I'm glad you mentioned Stark," Agent Harris says.
The old woman smiles. "Yes. He is the key to everything."
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"Jesus, Tony, you're a mess!"
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Doctor Phil," Tony says, his hand still up by his ear. He'd remembered the Sonic Taser thirty seconds ago, and if the custom earplugs hadn't been in his desk drawer, there would have been no chance of getting them in without suspicion. As it is, he can't quite get the second one situated; it's just a hair too large. He's forced to palm it, cramming the thing into his pocket. With trepidation further roiling his already upset stomach, Tony leans back in his chair and turns to face the business partner he's grown to mistrust enough to wear protection.
"If I'd known you were this fucked up I'd have made sure Pepper was on the plane! Anything I can do for ya? You know, an hour ago I'd have said pizza was the cure for all ills, but not after seeing how green you look!" Obie leans towards him, and it's all Tony can do not to recoil.
It's unseasonably cool in the city today, and Stane hadn't hurried to see him. So why is he practically drenched in sweat?
"You're a sight yourself! You get a TSA interrogation of your own?" Tony jokes, leaning back in his chair for effect.
Stane whips out a handkerchief from his pocket, and a small black object flies out, bouncing on the concrete floor. Tony doesn't get a good look at it before it's stuffed back in, but Obie looks rattled.
"This from the man who looks like death warmed over? Come on, ya big baby. I'll help you up into bed. Lord knows your dad has enough of 'em in this house."
Before Tony can stop him, Obadiah Stane arcs a large arm around Tony's back, hauling him to his feet.
"Gentle with the merchandise," Tony mutters. "JARVIS? Beddy Bye protocol, okay? No roses."
"Protocol implemented."
There's no such thing, but JARVIS is smart, and by adding a reference to womanizing, Tony hopes he's concealing Emory's importance to him. He sneaks a glance toward his computer as he's guided toward the stairs, seeing that every screen is black, with no power indicator lights. Once they step onto the landing, the basement lights even shut off completely.
Stane adjusts his grip- and Tony can totally picture the fall, the push. He'll end up laying there in the dark while Happy makes things worse in a jail cell, while Pepper and Coulson are attacked by one of Stane's cronies back in California. Emory's mission will fail the next day because some idiot will share the news of Tony's 'accidental death' and erase her ability to use her powers.
Will the subdural hematoma kill him slowly or will Stane lose patience and help things along?
"Tony, did you hear me? Pick a room before I kick the door down!"
Tony hiccups and reorients himself, almost shocked that his depressed vision isn't actually a reality. He's standing in the upstairs hallway, still held upright by his business partner's sturdy arm. He'd daydreamed his way up two flights of stairs.
In a strained voice, Obie says, "Tone, I like my shoes. If you throw up on 'em, I'm gonna leave you in a heap in the hallway."
"Yeah, I bet you would." Tony staggers forward to the door they're stopped in front of. "This one." It's the one he's been sleeping in, which is not the Master Bedroom. Did Stane know that?
He swivels slowly to look at Obie. Vomiting on the guy is definitely on the table. Too late, he remembers that the armored suit is downstairs, and there aren't speakers for JARVIS up here yet. He's been outmaneuvered.
"You got a bucket somewhere to stick beside the bed?"
"What, for all the blood?" Tony grumbles, stumbling into the room. Stane brushes past him toward the bathroom.
"If there's blood, you should wait and call a doc later. Do it before the evening news and BOOM! You'll be lookin' at substance abuse rumors, just in time for the broadcast," Stane says, his voice obscured by the sounds of running water. Tony collapses onto the bed with his pants half-removed. He kicks them the rest of the way off and pulls the blanket up, wondering if asking for the bucket would make him look too vulnerable.
A Dixie cup is thrust into his line of sight.
"Is it poisoned?" Tony asks, sincerely, because fuck it. He'd connected Phil Coulson to Pepper hours ago. The data transfer to hack into Stark Industries' systems went off without a hitch, according to JARVIS. Everything is already in motion, he's just riding the Consequences Mobile as it cruises along on autopilot.
"Look at you! It wouldn't need to be. Go to sleep, Tony," Stane chuckles before downing half the water in an ostentatious gulp. "Your dad used to get paranoid and fatalistic when he had a fever, too. Made designing with him kinda fun, sometimes. I'll stop by in the morning."
"For my corpse, right, Mark Callaway?"
"Wrong Undertaker. See ya." Stane pats the foot of the bed twice with the flat of his hand, then walks out, leaving the bedroom door open behind him. "Get better!" he calls out, jogging down the stairs.
Tony doesn't relax until he hears the front door close. The bed is ten, maybe twenty times more comfortable than his cot in the cave… but he's more frightened for his life now than he ever was back then. He lays still in the darkness for many long minutes, trying to settle his breathing until the distinctive sound of Stane's car revving up and driving off persuades him to attempt some much-needed sleep.
88888888
Emory's mission relies on being a supplicant, so she's grateful the mask covers her reaction to hearing the woman speaking so confidently about Tony Stark.
It's not enough.
"Stark has hooks in you!" the woman addressed as Iulia laughs. "Good! You kept him alive, no doubt. Assistants turn the world; I know, I was my husband's lab assistant many years. You could do that diva's job for her if you trade bodies, and I could do almost everything my husband Max did, after a few years. Not that anyone would believe me!" She jabs a wizened finger toward Emory. "You know."
This is not going well, but Emory nods, pulling comfort from the feeling of potential energy that's started to gather in invisible layers around her.
"She fired you for being kidnapped, I hear! HYDRA, just as bad. Max and I worked on their stolen serum for years, and always they thought it was for them. Ha! What we built, it was for Sasha, our daughter. She was born with problems, many problems. Struggled to walk, but mind as sharp as the both of us."
The old woman's eyes glaze over, caught up in memory. Emory looks up at Agent Harris, trying to convey worry without seeming suspicious. Their plan to beg the shady scientist for mercy is falling apart, but they're a captive audience. Emory needs the serum, no matter what.
"I'm sorry to hear about your daughter," she says, putting as much compassion in her voice as she can. Privately, Emory suspects that this is manipulation, a way to derail her own sympathy ploy. She's certainly not going to play oppression olympics with someone who's trying to ruin her life.
"You aren't, not yet," Iulia says. "These HYDRA bosses, they had us in the very heart of a factory. Working, hiding- and then one day a man showed up to change everything. 'For the better!' he told us. Demanded to know why there was no special powers serum for him after so long we had been working! When he did not like our answers he took prototype and injected it into Sasha as punishment. 'Now you will have to make it perfect! I will be back in three days to see your results,' he told us." Iulia's whole body is rigid, eyes bright with unshed tears.
"What, you didn't want her to have the serum dependence that you rely on so much for money now?" Agent Harris asks, her words as poisonous as her tone is sweet. Emory wonders if the other woman is picking up on the same 'something is off' feeling that's been growing in the pit of her own stomach. The layers aren't strong enough to affect the airflow around her yet, but it's only a matter of time.
"That came later," the old woman says dismissively, as though the jibe has glanced right off of her. "No, we were working to direct the mutation. Sasha's was… incompatible with life. It took a time to understand what it had done, and in those three days Max and I created complete second set of research, one that would never, could never work. At dawn on the third day, I left to hide away our life's work- but before I returned, the factory was destroyed in huge explosion." Iulia lifts her chin and pierces Emory with the directness of her gaze. "Sasha's last act made worldwide headlines. That brought much scrutiny, forced HYDRA to back off and lick their wounds. As for Sasha, at least she had Max with her at-" she breaks off, pressing a shaking fist to her lips.
"I'm so sorry," Emory whispers, dismay causing her to drop the mask she's been holding to her face. It's more important to let this woman see that her expression is genuine, even though she is an adversary. Breaking through the concern is a stronger feeling of wrongness, though. "Was the factory here in Sokovia?" she blurts out. It's almost like she's able to think more clearly now without the stale trickle of oxygen from the tank- and her first thought is that she remembers a factory explosion in Sokovia. Except, the one she recalls wasn't in the 40's or 50's, when the world's governments were still searching for secret HYDRA cells to stamp out.
It was in 1998, the year she'd met Rory Fall.
Emory grips the arms of her wheelchair, transfixed on the look of sly calculation that has replaced the grief on Iulia's face.
"Sokovia, yes," the woman says quietly.
Emory's energy increases, the circling layers strong enough to flutter at her loose strands of hair. Behind her, Agent Harris shifts positions. In a stiff voice Harris says, "Are you telling us that a new wing of HYDRA was active there in the nineties?"
Iulia reaches down to open one of the drawers at her desk. She pulls out a padded white envelope and some folded pieces of notebook paper that seem to be completely covered in handwriting. "They never left."
Agent Harris actually backs up with Emory's wheelchair, even though the concoction in the tank needs less than six feet of distance. "Mask on!" the agent quickly whispers to Emory, before croaking out a harsh laugh, saying, "You've gotta be kidding me. I didn't sign up to work for some weird branch of HYDRA!"
"Through me? They wish!" A concussive noise outside drains all the color from the old woman's face. "How could they- ah! A trigger in the drawer," Iulia yanks on something and holds up a tangle of thin, bare wire just as another noise echoes through the room from above them, louder this time. Emory wonders if it's the attack already. It seems too soon, too violent. The old woman grabs at the things she'd pulled out from the drawer, fumbling with them in obvious haste- but she can't know that the two of them have come with a strike force. Is she worried about her own people?
Agent Harris shoves the wheelchair forward and vaults over the desk toward Iulia, who is ripping something black and metal out of the padded envelope. Hearing the hiss of the gas releasing behind her ear, Emory gets her mask tightened right as she smashes into the solid surface, too late to gather enough energy to slow down. Her power explodes into spinning circles of force around her, blasting things off of the desk and tugging at the oxygen mask's tubing. Just as she'd practiced, Emory tempers them back to intangibility, desperate to let the gas they've just released to work.
Through the hazy cloud, Emory sees the two women grappling with each other, but Iulia is still very much conscious. "How- -you not- -yet?" Harris grits out, her muttered question obscured by the sounds of shouting deeper into the building. Maybe the concoction isn't strong enough? With a hand tight to her mask and the other on a wheel, Emory tries to get around the desk before it's all emitted.
"You must listen!" Iulia is screaming, and something flies out of the cloud toward Emory, causing her to instinctively deflect it with a gust of power-fueled air. The black metal box sails towards the wall and skids over to strike the corner near the stained glass window.
The old woman cries out in dismay at the same time that Agent Harris shouts, "Get back, get back now! She's wired!" The incapacitating gas looks like it's doing nothing, but Emory doesn't know if it's explosive, and if Harris is right-
A concussive blast strikes her wheelchair from behind, and she hunches over to maintain the seal on her mask. Harris darts past her out of the mist, swearing under her breath. Working on instinct, Emory gathers the contaminated air around her and sends it swirling after the agent, anchoring her mask with a forearm just in case. The wheelchair spins with the force of the gale.
Emory can see Agent Harris sliding on her knees toward a group of three livery-clad henchmen piling through the debris of the far entrance. The closest one has a purple-blue cloud gathering between her hands which starts to dissipate right as the cloud of incapacitating mist reaches the group. The attacker is swept to her knees by Harris, falling unconscious as she's enveloped in the cloud.
It's a small victory, but that feeling is shattered when the second attacker does something to explode the mist right before Agent Harris's heel connects with his head, knocking them both to the ground. The third henchman is thrown back against the cracked wall, but that just anchors the dark shape in his hands.
Emory only realizes it's a gun when the muzzle flash flares. She spends her remaining bands of energy to spiral Iulia's discarded desk chair toward the bullets' path, but it's not fast enough.
A hot, lancing pain blasts her arm seconds before a wailing cry of agony sounds from the old woman. Emory tears off her mask and clasps a hand over her stinging wound, heaving herself out of the wheelchair to find Iulia in a collapsed heap on the floor. Conscious that they're still in the line of fire, she starts dragging her behind the desk, lying as flat as she can to avoid being seen.
"Where?" she shouts- but the blood pulsing from a wound in Iulia's gut answers for her.
"Take," Iulia says, clutching at her as Emory tries to staunch the bleeding with her bare hands. The scientist is holding a folded collection of hand-written papers, and she shoves them past Emory's neckline and down inside her shirt.
"We'll get you some help," Emory promises, even though she has no idea how the hell to do that. She can hear American voices shouting now, and the gun hasn't fired again, so it's likely that Harris has that attacker preoccupied. The gas had been meant for Iulia, but the rest of the team were supposed to be keeping her henchmen busy. There's clearly more of them than they'd expected, or they're more powerful than expected. Either is a blow. For now, all Emory can do is take off her suit jacket to put pressure on the wound- but that's when she remembers Harris's warning.
Iulia's eyes have rolled back into her head, but when Emory lifts up her shirt to look for the wires, she comes awake with a frothy cough that doesn't bode well. Emory's got the old woman in her lap, power starting to cascade around her again after the lull of expending it all, but it's obvious that they have to get Iulia to a hospital now if she has any chance to survive.
There is indeed a warren of wires crisscrossing Iulia's chest, connected to a rectangular power pack right over her heart. Fear starts to choke Emory's throat, but she pushes it back. "Get you safe," she grits out, but the scientist's foam-flecked lips form the word 'no.' "Don't talk, save your-"
"HYDRA," Iulia gurgles in a burst of agitation. "SHIELD lost the-"
"Shh, shh. They didn't get them all, I know."
"No!" the old woman says, her body falling limp, as if that single word has taken all her strength. "Vials. Unique," she rasps, her claw-like hand lifting toward the window.
"I'll get them. Rest, now," she says, but the jacket is wet and slippery with blood, and Iulia's turning pale. "Harris!" Emory screams, the intensity of her emotions causing a whirlwind to flare to life around her.
"Thirty seconds!" the SHIELD agent's voice calls out, almost too far away to be heard. A burst of gunfire hits one of the books that's spun up in her cyclone of excess power. They're dying ducks behind this desk.
"Hang on, okay? Hang on," Emory hisses, but Iulia's hazy expression sharpens, fixing on her with an expression full of dread.
"Dying here was always plan," she coughed. The foam was pink, now. "Like Sasha."
The whirlwind doubles, driven by Emory's fear, and right then, a terrific crashing sound comes from the stained glass window as a figure sails through, sending glass in all directions. She twists herself sideways to crouch over Iulia, folding the remaining layers of power around them in a desperate attempt to stop the blast of debris. A few pieces pelt her back like hailstones, their momentum softened by her power buffer. When she lifts her head, she sees the fragments arrayed around them, hears some clatter off of her back onto the floor. Around them, the violent, spinning air has gathered the other shards, creating a lethal, semi transparent barrier of colored glass.
Iulia's eyes are closed, and her lips are moving. Emory leans closer, glad for her fear of the explosive pack on the woman's chest, because if she loses that emotion now, a million pieces of glass will rain down on the two of them.
"SHIELD… is HYDRA. HYDRA is-"
A rattling sort of sigh hitches through the old woman, stealing away her last word. Emory presses her own blood-soaked fingers to the old woman's neck, repositioning over and over, but there's no pulse.
A single beep sounds from the power pack in Iulia's chest.
88888888
"Mr. Stark! Sir, you MUST wake up!"
Tony wakes in the dark to the insistent blare of an alarm. He can hear JARVIS, but that's ridiculous. All of the speakers are at least two floors away.
"Sir, if you do not wake soon, I fear the authorities will arrive to investigate. Your life is in danger!"
Tony can believe it. He feels like death, much worse than before, even though sleep was always the magic bullet when he was sick. The shirt he's wearing is soaked with sweat, and the clammy, metallic-sweet scent is almost enough to make him heave. Tony struggles to take it off, and he's halfway there when JARVIS's over-loud warning sounds again from the basement speakers. It's a testament to how sick he is that he'd tuned out the alarm already. Without any tech in the bedroom, his AI doesn't know he's awake.
He pulls in a deep breath to yell back, but this knocks him to his knees with a horrific coughing fit that is not helped by the fact that he's tangled up in his wet shirt. Tony braces himself on the floor on all fours and hacks away for a while, falling over onto his side next to the bed to catch his breath. His naked left arm swings out under the bed and comes into contact with something smooth and metal.
It's his phone.
Tony struggles with the thing for far too long, long enough that he imagines he could actually count the slow-ass firing of his neurons as they send move instructions to his fingers, but finally he realizes it's not working because it's off.
He never turns his phone off. Pepper usually has to steal it to install updates, that's how bad he is about it. For his phone to be off and under the bed? That's, well. It's fucking nefarious, that's what it is.
Tony's brain cells at least fire fast enough for him to slough off the rest of his shirt while it boots up. There are a lot of messages. Some are from a deputy at the precinct Hogan's locked up in, fawning ones that pass on what looks like half fanboy praise and half ridiculous, exaggerated explanations of Happy's woes. Tony scrolls past them. Pepper's messages are next.
Tony works his way up to a stand while reading them, buoyed up by the childish prank he'd played on her the last time she pissed him off, changing her contact in his phone to what amounted to calling her 'pee pots.'
The first message was from shortly after he fell asleep.
PPotts: the guys you sent over to help out are here, we're going to go back in and look at the computer
PPotts: The computer was running some kind of deletion protocol but the SHIELD tech guy found a copy of the whole thing backed up in your files. We can see the name of it, but can't access it, are you there?
He falls over twice on the way to the bathroom, cursing himself for the shit he left on the floor in the way. Switching on the light makes him feel more human, at least. The plastic cup has toothpaste residue on it but the water tastes so good he guzzles two cupfuls, practically drenching himself. Hydration seems to help turn the gears in his head, because he realizes that there's no way in hell he wants those SHIELD guys poking around in his personal files. The visible save file with Obie's back-up was probably childish, a red flag to Stane's bull, but it's not like anyone can access it but Tony. He could plausibly have named an empty folder the exact same way.
"Fuck, I feel terrible," Tony groans- and then he sees himself in the mirror.
It's like someone's tattooed him with some weird circuit board design from the ARC reactor on out. It's almost a fractal, but it's under his skin, maybe even in his skin, like an alien immune response to a literal science fiction virus, or something.
"Sir, Mr. Stane's vehicle is headed in this direction," JARVIS says, the voice coming from his phone speakers, now. "Strongly suggest you suit up and fly away until you are recovered."
Tony fumbles for his phone, waking it up to see that it's four AM. "Obie's a morning person, but not that early," he says, catching himself before he rubs at the strange, empty ache in his chest. He allows himself another gulp of water and fall-walks over to one of the shirts he'd thrown onto the floor a few days ago, pulling it on.
It's backwards and inside out, but fuck it.
"I am in communication with Ms. Potts, sir. Things have developed since we last spoke, and I believe you are in direct, mortal danger."
"Yeah, what else is new," Tony says, staring down at the chasm of stairs he's going to have to navigate. "Okay, it's toddler time."
He sits down and shoves, lifting his feet and bumping down five stairs in record time, which immediately sends him into a fit of vomiting. Not much comes up, and he at least aims well, but it's a sobering-but-not-sobering-in-the-right-way kind of moment. Whatever is going on with him is very, very bad, and if he were in Vegas right now, he'd be placing bets on Obie being the source of all of it.
"J, how far away is the villain of the piece?"
"Half a mile."
"Can you summarize Potts' concerns for me while I lump my way to the front door just in time for the Big Obowski to walk in and smoke me?"
His sense of urgency is oddly dampened, and Tony wonders if his cybervirus is fucking with his adrenaline centers, or what. He feels less weak than he did before the water, but-
"Most pertinent is a word file bearing today's date that survived the deletion program. It's a formal letter requesting a mental health evaluation for you and describes erratic behavior, vomiting, paranoid delusions, and a strange rash."
Intellectually (for as much as he feels like a literal dullard, right now) he'd known Obie meant him harm. Hadn't he been confused by the lack of obviously sinister actions earlier that day? Hearing those fears confirmed, though, that is nothing short of horrific. It's the last good thing about his father swept away, maybe- the legacy of mentorship and support Howard's friend Stane had offered Tony since his parents' passing. Had it always been a lie, or had jealousy gotten in the way?
Tony scoots on his ass across the foyer and into the next room to the next flight of stairs, because alive is better than dead, even if awake is not better than asleep.
"You know what? I feel like shit anyway, why fight it?"
He lifts his feet, angles his head to the side, and shoves, barrelling down the last two flights with a speed that almost knocks him unconscious and definitely clears out the remainder of his gastrointestinal system.
"Very happy to see you down here, sir."
"Yeah, jury's still out on how long I'm staying alive and conscious," Tony says, wiping his mouth on the step like a chronic back alley drunk. The grit he comes away with is nicer than the bile he left behind, and that's just a capper on his night, right there.
The whine of a siren is now audible, and that's what forces Tony onto his feet. He has no doubt it's for him. The room looks like it's undulating, though, and he knows he's not well enough to save himself.
"JARVIS, do you have control access for the lights?"
"I have the authority over the breakers, thanks to your prototype. However, I myself do still require power."
"'S'fine," Tony slurs, bracing himself on a table. The sirens are getting louder. "What about guiding me to the suit by flipping shit off and on like visual breadcrumbs? Oh, and activate whatever destructs you need to, to keep Stane out of our shit if I make it out of here. Fucker doesn't deserve to profit off of me anymore."
"Excellent idea."
There's a pause, and then a light comes on in the far corner, turning off and on twice, probably to catch his attention.
"Got it," he says, and throws himself onto the wall toward it, pushing off from that to land against another table, which squeaks loudly in protest.
"The backups in Ms. Potts' residence are active, as are the remote servers in Vienna and Idaho."
"Good." Tony's finally in the hallway indicated, vaguely remembering where he is, when JARVIS blinks the overhead.
"Keep along the hallway and to the right, it's all the same circuit. Stane is almost at the gates, do you have a preferred response when he requests access?"
"I don't suppose we can electrify the fence?" He's crawling now, and despite the numbed hormone response, he feels like his marked skin is not his own anymore, like it's pulsing to a different heartbeat. Tony turns the corner and the lights turn out.
"Stane is typing in an override. These lights are visible from the outside; place your right hand on the wall and follow it. The next room has the suit. I recommend swapping to a fresh core for safety's sake."
"J, I don't have time to-"
"You're at 30% power, and the ARC powers the mechanism that puts you in the suit. You don't have time NOT to."
He'd forgotten that alteration, performed after blowing several fuses. It was the reason he'd frankensteined a rejected remote-operated breaker system onto the 1990's wiring in the first place.
"Fine, fine, let me fuck with my innards while the authorities break in to cart me to the looney bin!" Tony gripes. JARVIS reminds him of the cartridge tucked into the suit itself, and he goes through the blurry, shaky-handed process of swapping the damned things.
The door bursts open upstairs without so much as a knob-rattle to presage it, and two separate alarms sound immediately. The one in the basement is ear-splitting, enough to jump-start Tony's dormant adrenaline cache. He can barely hold still for the buttoning-up process for the suit, but the number of heavy footsteps he can hear upstairs pushes him to do his best.
"Where's the nearest outside wall?" he shouts as the helmet clicks down and he's at least safe in his tin can. Whether he'll be able to get back out without destroying it is a problem for tomorrow.
"Recommend against leaving the building unprotected, sir. The door-"
A cascade of footsteps on the basement stairs makes the point moot. "We're already compromised, JARVIS, tell me where, I'm all turned around!" He can send Rhodey and two battalions of fresh-faced recruits to learn bricklaying or whatever, as long as he gets out of here in one piece.
The HUD lights up a path for Tony to follow, and despite knowing the repulsors are going to fuck with the floor, he activates them, practically flying along in places, sending shit spinning and definitely indicating where he is to his pursuers.
A bullet pings off of his suit, followed by a couple of shouts to hold fire before Tony raises both arms in front of him and blasts a hole in the wall. As he flies through the resulting space, he realizes it's the room his father had filmed his commercial spots for the Stark Expo. Tony jets straight up, hovering in midair to look down at the plethora of emergency vehicles that are powering up the road. Their lights spread out beneath him like a Christmas tree viewed from the top down, and his stomach lurches dangerously.
"Well, now what?"