"Cause after all the partying and smashing and crashing
And all the glitz and glam and the fashion
And all the pandemonium and all the madness
There comes a time when you fade to the blackness
And when you're staring at the phone in your lap
And you hoping but them people never call you back"
- B.o.B. ft. Hayley Williams
"Uhh… Pepper?" She was definitely on the line, but all Danny could hear were her frantic words and an equally frantic reply. As she stowed her laptop into her bag, she asked, "Is this a bad time?"
"…Jesse, we'll fix it. Stop apologizing –" There was a pause. "Danny, honey, what do you need? We're a little busy at the office today."
"Oh, sorry," Danny muttered, narrowly missing hitting a woman on the sidewalk with the door as she exited a coffeeshop. She side-stepped, giving a thin-lipped smile as she went about her day. "I'm really sorry to bother, Pep, but I'm sort of stuck in downtown."
"Just charge the card for a taxi, you know it's fine."
"No, that's sort of why I'm calling…" Danny hiked the strap of her bag on her shoulder as she walked, glancing at the newsstands with Tony's face and New Year ads all over. Sheepishly, she began, "It was declining earlier, and I couldn't – I think the card got turned off?"
"Goddammit, Tony. He didn't even…" Pepper let out a long sigh. Whatever the issue was must not have been good. "Honey, where are you? I'll tell Happy to come pick you up."
Danny turned on the sidewalk, head swiveling around as she tried looking for street markers. "I'm on Eighth Street and something, close to the Fogo that we went to one time." And then, out of pure curiosity: "What the hell is going on?"
A faint female voice called for Pepper, and then she said, "Danny, just wait for Happy. I need to go."
The call ended abruptly. She stared at the phone in her hand for a moment, brows furrowed in confusion, before stepping off to the side. Danny worried about why Pepper had reacted like that; she's had her busy days at SI, but today seemed to put her on edge more than usual.
It was a surprisingly fast twenty minutes later when Happy's car pulled up to the curb, honking to grab her attention. "Someone call for a ride?" he called jokingly, lowering the passenger window.
Danny jumped to her feet, waving at him as she approached the vehicle. He waited for her to buckle into the front before pulling back onto the street. The blonde turned to him, curious. "Weird question that I'm not sure if I'm even privy to: Is Tony going through something?"
A snort came from him. "Tony's always going through something," Happy responded, shaking his head. "Be more specific."
"What's happening at the office that Pepper's so stressed about, then?"
He looked at her then, his face becoming stoic and unreadable. "I'm not at liberty to say."
Danny's eyes narrowed in response. Okay, so it's gonna be like that then. She asked, "Who's Jesse from the office?"
"One of the girls who works in the IT department."
"And what does she do?"
"Mostly fraud protection –" Happy stopped midsentence, huffing through his nose. "Danny, quit bugging. What is or isn't happening is not something you need to concern yourself with."
She rescinded, deciding not to push the questioning further. "Fine, okay," Danny muttered. "I just wanted to make sure I hadn't fucked something up with Tony's finances on accident."
Happy honked the car horn at a jaywalker, hitting the breaks suddenly. A couple more honks sounded behind them. Danny barely had time to react before the seatbelt caught her. "What? Why? What did you do?" he asked accusingly.
"Nothing! The card Tony gave me kept being declined for 'insufficient funds', which is fucking crazy because he's literally the richest…" Danny trailed off when she saw the frown tugging at his lips. "Why are you making that face?"
"This doesn't leave this car," Happy said pointedly, throwing her a soft glare before focusing on the road again. Upon deliberating on his words, he explained, "Tony had to freeze his accounts temporarily because somebody managed to steal his identity."
A laugh escaped her mouth before she realized that he wasn't kidding. "How does that even happen? I thought Tony upgraded his security after the Lina thing."
"From what I understood between Pepper's hysterics and Jesse's crying, some malworm was sent through email and imbedded into the wireframing for the hacker."
Danny sat speechless for a moment, trying to translate whatever the hell Happy just said to her. She looked like a fish, with her mouth opening and closing, unsure with how to respond to that. "So… malware from an email got a hacker into the mainframe?"
"I literally just said that."
Danny rolled her eyes in amusement, staring through the window as the cityscape passed them by on the freeway. As Happy hummed along with the song on the radio, their silence was cut by a loud sound rumbling from Danny's stomach. She felt her face flush in embarrassment but decided to ignore it.
But then, it grumbled louder.
"Did you eat at all today?" Happy asked her.
"I had an iced coffee at the café, I'm fine." That was totally a lie, but she couldn't cover anything and there was no way she'd let Happy pay without putting up a fight.
"We're getting a meal in ya, kid. I think there was a Burger King at the next exit." Before Danny could even protest, he cut her off. "Don't even argue. I gotta look after you, too."
She looked at him with a fondness in her eyes, smiling gratefully. "Thanks, Happy."
"Clint, in my office. I need to talk to you."
The one in question turned to the bald man already walking around the corner, before excusing himself from his conversation with another agent. When Clint stepped through the office door, Sitwell looked like he was going to rip him a new one. "What's got your panties in a twist, Jasper?" he teased, lazy smirk tugging at his lips.
"Look at this and tell me what you see." He shoved a folder into Clint's hands, mouth turned downward. Sitwell motioned for the agent to take a seat, which he did.
The folder held a flight manifest for a Stark Industries jet that left this morning for Genoa, Italy, and a second sheet with a photocopy of a renewed passport with his sister's information. Clint felt confused more than anything, and he looked up to question, "What the hell is Danny doing on a plane to Italy?"
"That's what I was going to ask you," he retorted. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, turning to his computer to type out something. "You're supposed to be monitoring her. Now the better question is: Could she have known your brother was also in Italy?"
"What? I didn't even know my brother was in Italy." The news threw Clint for a loop. No one ever mentioned Barney. Hell, it's been years since he's even been in contact with his older brother. He was probably some big-shot FBI agent by now, for all he knew. Clint shut the folder, tossing it back onto Sitwell's desk. "What the hell's Barney got to do with this?" he probed. "He's a fed, and I'm damn sure he's never even met Stark."
Sitwell explained, "According to my guys at the FBI, your brother is working a case in Rome at their overseas office. Now, I thought it was just weird a coincidence..." He stared at Clint through his glasses, expression indecipherable. "This had better be a coincidence."
"What, like I scheduled a family reunion or something?"
The response he got was a raise of the eyebrow, almost challenging. "Did you?"
"Are you serious? Listen, I'll look into this, but I'm telling you now I'm not going to find anything," Clint said, finally playing into Sitwell's stupid mind games. "Danny doesn't know what Barney's up to nowadays; she still thinks I lost contact with him when he joined the military."
"Make sure of that," Sitwell told him, eyes narrowing threateningly. "And don't forget to CC me into your report to Fury."
The rest of his afternoon consisted of going through SHIELD's servers in order to play catch-up with both Danny and the genius billionaire himself. Apparently, some agents abroad cited that Tony Stark had a little run-in with Ten Rings insurgents in Europe, who had tried selling off some of his stolen weaponry a couple of days ago. There was even a carnival in Genoa that was supposedly "sponsored" by Stark's stolen money; Clint assumed that was why they had left in the first place.
During his search, Clint came across online school applications under his sister's name. He could remember, vaguely, her mentioning wanting something to do to pass the time, and he supposed that she finally decided on certificate programs to do just that. Clint dialed up Danny's cellphone number, waiting for her to answer.
He got sent to voicemail. "Hey, it's me, I just wanted to check-in," he began, spinning in his chair. "I can swing by LA in a few weeks, for your reassessment. Let's grab dinner and catch up? Call me back."
Clint drafted up a case report update about Danny, sending it to Fury, Sitwell, and Coulson. The response he got from Phil was: Thanks. Enjoy New Year's.
Sometimes, Tony despised technology. It was both the greatest thing man has developed and also the worst when it falls into the wrong hands. He should know more than anyone; he's been on both sides of that war.
A shipment of his first-generation rifles originally meant to be destroyed had gotten diverted by a hacker, and while he was able to stop the guards and deal with the weapons, what started off as a retrieval turned into a manhunt. The company mainframe was hacked, and whoever did it had exploited Tony's identity and resources. Thankfully, he was able to track the coding of the malware origins to Italy in only a day's time.
When he arrived in Genoa in the Iron Man suit, Tony was celebrated by the locals. The hackers had used his money to host a carnival to celebrate the new year, complete with a beauty contest and a parade. Even after taking down more Ten Rings informants and throwing the hacker Cordo Gaines in jail, something told him that he needed to keep digging. So, he extended the carnival for another week. What better way to distract the bad guys than that?
Tony had to lie to Pepper about getting arrested just to get her on a plane to Europe. He required her assistance with stopping the whole organization, and that meant entering her in the beauty contest to see who had any info about the people involved with cyber-criminals. She had arrived in the city the next morning, expecting to bail him out.
"You seem mad," he had said when she realized what was happening.
Pepper was scary when she shouted, but even more terrifying when she didn't. "I'm furious. I can't believe you lied to me, Tony, honestly!"
"If you'd just said 'yes' the first time, I wouldn't have needed to."
"Oh, so now this is my fault?"
"Stop yelling!" Danny said loudly, trying to break up the argument. "It's not helping anybody."
Admittedly, Danny tagging along on the trip wasn't necessarily part of the plan, but nonetheless she was excited to help bring down the bad guys. When Tony spotted her mingling with the contestants (posing as his intern), he had to admit that she had a future in espionage. She seemed like a natural. At least, she was faring a little better than Pepper was.
That night, the carnival directors had set up a little party for the contest nominees in one of the local villas, overlooking the public New Year's Eve festivities. It was the peak of their celebrations of the last few days, with local cuisine and staged concerts to top it off.
He was talking with Pepper about their plan before he realized his glass was empty. Excusing himself, he headed to the bar to get his fill. One of the contestants saddled up to his side, exuding the Notice Me energy that everyone else was putting on. Suffice to say, watching her attempt to flirt with him and wrap his tie around her fingers did the trick.
A familiar ringtone went off after a few shared laughs. The woman – Corinna, he had found out – paused in the middle of her story to look at him weirdly. "Are you not going to answer that?"
Tony's hand went to his breast pocket, then both of his jacket pockets, before finding the ringing cellphone in his pants pocket. It had slipped his mind that Danny had asked him to hold onto her phone because her dress didn't have anywhere to leave it.
The caller ID read Clinton, with the photo showing Danny making stupid faces and throwing up peace signs with that SHIELD agent they had come across before. This can't be a boyfriend. Unless…? That same curiosity ran through his mind, closely followed by a wave of protectiveness. Feeling slightly petty, Tony sent him straight to voicemail, pocketing her phone again. He turned his attention back to Corinna, shooting her a signature grin. "Where were we?"
It was a quarter to midnight when Tony finally saw her again, standing alone past the quad where the light fixtures ended. Danny was leaning against the stone balcony railing, watching the city life from afar. When Tony came up to stand beside her, her expression changed almost immediately. She had been thinking pensively, a frown set on her face, before she plastered on a fake smile. Huh. This girl could give me a run for my money. He wasn't going to let it go.
"Any updates about Gaines' guys?" he inquired, moving to pull out her phone and return it.
Danny shrugged, giving a nod in thanks. "A couple girls talked about burying paperwork about their surgeries in Korea, but otherwise, not really."
Tony set his glass down onto the stone, asking her seriously, "What about you? Doing okay?"
She stared at her phone for a while before answering with: "Just… a lot on my mind." Her eyes met his, and he recognized a sadness in them. Danny's smile faltered as she sighed. She faced the city again, and Tony followed her gaze. "We're a long way from New York," she said softly.
"That we are," he replied, picking up his glass to take a swig. He smacked his lips, noting the silence. Tony offered it to her. "Drink?"
"I shouldn't –"
"C'mon, you're in fuckin' Italy. I'm pretty sure you're above the legal drinking age." A corner of Tony's mouth quirked up in a smirk. He finished, "Kinda looks like you might need it."
Raising a questioning brow, she countered, "Isn't this how alcoholism starts?"
"Hell if I know. I started sneaking my dad's handles when I was eleven." Tony scoffed out a laugh, trying to downplay his past traumas and hoping that Danny wouldn't stick on it. "I won't tell Pepper if you won't."
Danny hesitated for a few moments before taking hold of his glass and taking a tentative sip, wincing only slightly. She licked her lips, asking, "What is that?"
"Negroni. The drink of my people." Tony chuckled slightly as he swung back the rest of the red liquid in one go, pursing his lips. When Danny turned back to look out over the city, he leaned against the balcony, trying to catch her eye. "Seriously, kiddo, what's with the sour mood? What's up in your head?"
He saw the muscles of her jaw tense as she clenched her teeth, swallowing. Danny's eyes seemed to glisten against the lights, even as she refused to look at him, silent. Tony didn't mention it when she hastily wiped a tear from her face as she began talking. "When you first met me, I was nobody to you – barely even Pepper's responsibility." Danny continued, "You had every reason to just write me off and never have to think about me again. I just can't… Why did you help me?"
Tony angled his head out to the city, watching the little sparklers and mini fireworks in the distance. He smiled wistfully as he answered, "I was always trying to prove something to somebody. It was probably for a lot of selfish reasons at first, to be honest."
She was looking at him then, a look of disbelief painting her face. "That's not true."
"You must not understand me as well as you thought." Tony leaned forward onto his forearms, laughing cynically.
Every decision he ever made was self-serving, if someone looked at it the right way. Building weapons for profit – selfish. Leaving Yinsen to die – selfish. Creating the Iron Man armor to hunt down the Ten Rings – selfish. Telling the world his superhero identity – selfish. Always asking Pepper to help him out of the shitholes that he dug himself into – selfish.
Tony had promised Yinsen that he wouldn't waste his life. Changing his company's bottom line was part of that promise. And Danny? Danny Barton was a girl that reminded him so much of his younger self, that was just as broken as he was, and he figured that maybe he could do something else good for once.
"Where were you a year ago today?" she asked suddenly, pulling him out of his thoughts. Danny frowned slightly. "Probably at a New Year's party just like this, right? Because I was in that stupid facility in New York, alone, not knowing if I was ever going to get out." Her lip began to quiver, and her eyes were watering again.
He wasn't sure how to respond – if he should respond. The start of 2009 seemed so long ago now, but he was most definitely throwing his money at expensive drinks and expensive women. Over the last year he had remained selfish, but he now realized that Danny had helped him not to be, sometimes. Tony let that fact sink in.
She sniffed, voice wavering, "You and Pepper – you gave me a home. You'd shown me a kindness I never deserved, you know. And that's – I never properly thanked you for it."
"You don't need to," Tony said, almost brushing off the sentiment. It wasn't an inconvenience, and he wished she got that. He turned to Danny, smiling, and placed an arm over her shoulders. "I think I'm the one that needs to thank you, realistically. You've grown on me."
"How?"
"Any other person in your situation would've taken advantage, in more ways than one. But you didn't, and for that I'm grateful."
Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey all could vouch that he was never an affectionate guy. His parents weren't the type, and it would often make him uncomfortable. But when Danny hugged him with all she had in her, Tony couldn't help but return it earnestly. "You're going to be alright, kiddo," he said, rubbing her back comfortingly. "Now get off before you get tear streaks all over me. This is Tom Ford."
Danny laughed, stifling a sob. She wiped away her tears as the crowd began the countdown, and the two of them looked up to the sky in anticipation. Amongst the cheers and noisemakers, the sound of the first firework was heard.
The red and gold of the Iron Man armor painted the skies.
A/N: This chapter ended up a lot longer than I first intended, but ya girl's been learning to "show, don't tell" when it comes to writing. The events here were inspired by the Iron Man: Will Online Evils Prevail? comic pre-IM2.
I'm super excited to get back into writing for this, I have (mostly) everything planned out until the end of Phase 3 already. Please leave a review with any feedback!