Disclaimer: Don't own The Blue Stones. Don't own Iron Man. I just glued them both together and make them stand outside holding my mailbox. It's like having a bedazzled Iron Man mail box. I think I might need to get the mail lady a very nice gift card for Christmas though. They scared her.
Chapter 20: Bodies on the Sand
The Blue Stones- Black Holes
Angela leaned toward her monitor, attention taken up by the small pieces of information JARVIS had culled from the SI files. She sucked on her bottom lip, tagged the suspicious person in safety, then grimaced when she recognized them as only another disposable pawn. Was there somebody in HR involved? How did these people keep getting hired?
In the background Tony's AI sassed him, bringing her out of her detective haze enough to chuckle slightly. The man built the AI that gave him attitude. It was an interesting wrinkle in his psychology. Half listening to him outline the new shell metals for the suits, Angela navigated out of the files and clicked into her email.
A few messages were highlighted new at the top of her page. There were a smattering from her people in Weapons, but it was the one from the human resources department that drew her attention. Wondering if she was finally going to hear about personnel being cleared for Clean Energy, she opened it.
Her face pulled down into a frown and she grunted in disgust. HR hadn't cleared anyone, in fact, her people had been put right back where they had started. It seemed that with Tony locked out of executive decisions the whole proposal had been scrapped and her position as an independent researcher had been revoked. She was being asked to return to work as Head of Weapons starting Monday.
With or without the shady dealings in the company, she would never allow her weapons designs to be marketed again. Her blood heated in agitation and she forced herself to skim rapidly through her team's emails before she could do something rash, like snap off a curt missive to HR with her resignation.
The emails followed a similar theme, confusion over the swift directional changes in the company and unease because of them. Angela leaned back in her chair and considered her options. She didn't want to leave her people caught out in the shifting company landscape, but there was only so much she could tell them. Coming to a decision she started composing a blanket response to her team, alerting them to the power struggle in SI and her stance on in.
A hail from Tony brought her out of her hunch in front of the computer. After a quick back and forth, where Angela reminded him why her going out was a bad idea, she dove back into her email. By the time he had come back through the lab, and taken off in the Audi, she had finished notifying HR of her intent to use up her PTO days. If she ended up quitting they would disappear anyway.
The dull hum of working machinery lulled her out of her previous agitation and she considered calling it a night. Closing out her email, her attention fell on her desktop icon for Tony's private server. Curiosity pulled her to check out the new rendering and she navigated through the master folder to the pertinent file.
Her jaw slacked and a chuff of incredulous humor left her. Somehow Tony had turned the suits into person-shaped hot rods. Oh God, she should have paid closer attention to what he was doing.
Her eyes traveled to the more in depth specs and her amusement slowly faded. By the third look through the information she was scowling. She should have paid closer attention to what he was doing.
Pulling back from her desk, Angela rubbed her hands over her eyes and tried to calm herself. It was a good thing that Tony had decided to go out. She needed to get her thoughts straight before she talked to him or she'd only end up shouting.
It wasn't the coloring that bothered her, the problem was that the suit's had been weaponized. On the screen in front of her the red and gold façade of the Mark IIIs gave way to calculations and clearances she hadn't been involved with. The hip mounted flares she could understand, but the shoulder mounted mini gun pods and the gauntlet holsters for mini missile launchers made the Mark IIIs seem sinister.
Tony had said he wanted to use the suits for good. What good use could they be put toward armed as they were? A sliver of an idea that had been recognized and then dismissed floated back to the forefront of her mind.
She was getting nowhere with the SI documents. It'd been two and a half months since she was attacked and the police had no leads on Bein's accomplice. In fact avenues of investigation were being closed using lethal means. And her weapons were still in the hands of terrorists.
But the Mark III designs could go the same way. Was she making the same mistakes all over again, only worse?
Angela drummed her fingers on the desk, wishing it wasn't so late. She wanted to talk to Mike. With a grim sense of frustration she remembered that she couldn't talk to Mike about the suits, because it would be breaking her NDA and because it would put him danger. That thought only lead to her wondering if she was doing what her brother had accused her of. Without doubt she knew that if Mike had any idea about the pile of half formed ideas and dark imaginings she'd been banishing to back of her mind he would be livid.
An echo of the loneliness she'd felt in Italy rolled over her. How was she supposed to make a judgment call when she didn't fully understand Tony's reasoning? What if once she understood it, she agreed?
Her mind blanked for a moment and she shivered. No. She shouldn't go down that road because she didn't know anything for sure. They'd never discussed the exact uses of the suits. Point of fact, they hadn't had any sort of in-depth, morally focused discussion about the suits since the very beginning. And wasn't that telling?
Slowly Angela felt her thoughts arrange themselves. She would ask him, and if he wouldn't answer, or she didn't like the answer, she would be done. It was all she could do.
She tried to stuff away the hurt she felt at Tony's lack of consultation. He was her friend, and he knew how she felt about designing weapons. Forcefully Angela reminded herself that Tony had always gone his own way, sometimes it was for the good, oftentimes it was not, and he hardly ever cared for anyone else's opinion along the way.
Her mind drifted over the changes she'd seen in him since Afghanistan. He'd been more focused but less patient, trying to shoulder his responsibilities and frustrated when the people he'd delegated them to were reluctant to give up that power.
He had changed, but he was also angry. Angela bit her lip and tried to remind herself that under everything, Tony Stark was a good man.
Her eyes ran over the weapons on the Mark III. In her memory she relived the tight, hard, rage she'd experienced when she'd turned Bein's gun on him. She remembered the feeling of being utterly willing to shoot him, of knowing that she wouldn't have felt bad about it for a second. Clenching her jaw, Angela wondered if she was still a good woman.
…...
After the clerk from the bicycle shop in Malibu dropped off her order, she'd called it an early night and tried to get some rest. Angela had no idea how long Tony would be out, or if he would be alone when he came back. There was zero desire to try to confront him when tired. And if she saw evidence of his previous irresponsible self, after finding out about the suits, she might do something ill-advised.
It'd been a mistake to think she would be able to sleep through the night, though. Oh, she'd fallen asleep, but then she'd fallen into nightmares.
When she woke the third time she didn't bother changing out of her sweat dampened pajamas before padding her way back down to the lab. Her mind felt like an overheating engine and she was desperate to take another look through the SI documents. There had to be something she was missing, some bigger picture. A part of her acknowledge that finding the person ultimately responsible through a paper trail was the last exit on the road she was traveling.
When the lab door opened she heard the television and looked over to see Tony sitting on the couch. Her feet hesitated on the threshold. She both wanted to have, and wanted to avoid, the conversation she knew was necessary. The glow of the repulsor attached to his hand made the decision for her. Sucking in a fortifying breath, Angela closed the door behind her and crossed the room to sit down next to him on the couch.
At the soft jostle Tony lowered the screw driver he was using on the gauntlet and turned to her. Angela watched him watch her, noticing the tightness at the corners of his mouth and the pinch between his brows. That boded well.
"I need to know why you weaponized the suits." The quasi question erupted out of her, like she'd picked a scab off an infected wound. She followed the move of his eyelashes as he gave a quick blink, and then looked down. The avoidance made her skin prickle. "Tony?"
Without saying a word, tension thick in his arm and shoulders, he leaned forward and pushed a stack of face down pictures across the coffee table to her. Nothing in his body language said anything good and he still wouldn't look at her. Flexing her fingers in an attempt to steady her nerves, Angela reached out and flipped the photos over.
The shock of the first image was physical and she flinched as if from a blow, churned up ground and ruined homes, death. It was horrific. It was something beyond what even the news would show, an image saved for a photojournalists hard hitting expose, but sadly not unique. She knew he wouldn't be showing her these if there wasn't something more.
Flipping to the next picture, her question was answered. Stacks and trucks full of crates, each with a Stark Industries label and in the background that sad, decimated village. She had to squeeze her eyes shut. Her teeth clacked together, throat seizing on a guttural moan.
Her weapons in the hands of terrorists. She'd known it. She'd dreamed it. But the proof, the visual aftermath of a group like that moving through, made her nightmares reality. It was everything she hadn't been able to stop and everything she needed to.
Unaware of how labored her breathing was becoming, Angela shuffled through image after image of her weapons and the death they had caused. When she flipped to the last picture and saw a fully operational Jericho her treacherous mind replayed Taylor's words like he was whispering in her ear - 'The Jericho looks fierce.' And she wasn't seeing the damning stack of photos in her hands anymore, instead Brandon's little body was an unidentifiable lump on the carpet.
Chills raced up her back. Her mouth watered and her stomach heaved. Angela dropped the pictures and bolted for the bathroom.
For long seconds she gagged and panted on her knees in front of the toilet, her hands locked around the seat like it was the only thing holding her up. An interminable time later footsteps sounded on the tile behind her. There was a rustle, and then a large hand rubbed soothing circles on her back. A noise of devastation ripped from her throat and the fingers on her back curled slightly.
When she finally gained control of herself, she was surprised that nothing had come up and she hadn't cried. Instead, her stomach and chest felt heavy, hard. The sensation pushed up her throat and she could taste iron in her mouth.
"How long have you had proof?" She rasped.
Despite the subtle accusation, the hand continued it's motions. "Of what's happening in Gulmira," Angela could hear something in his voice she didn't understand, "Tonight." He paused and she craned her neck back to look at him. In the dark bathroom the blue-white glow of their reactors reflected in his eyes. It made him look fierce and otherworldly, but also so terribly sad. "We've both known about the weapons in the hands of insurgents since the ambush."
She rubbed her clammy forehead and nodded, sitting back on her heels. She'd known, shunted it to the side because there wasn't anything she could do about it, but it had always been there waiting.
Her hands felt sticky. Rage was a hollow drum beat in her head and she was still on the floor, on her knees, like she'd already given up. Her head tipped back and she couldn't stop her upper lip from curling back into a snarl.
With some effort she gained her feet. Stepping around Tony, who was rising from his crouch and watching her carefully, she turned on the tap and splashed water on her face. Wiping the damp strands of hair back from her brow, she met her own fierce, sad eyes in the mirror and acknowledged they weren't doing enough.
What was in those photos was not going to be stopped by simply finding the person responsible for stealing weapons from SI. She couldn't keep doing the same thing and hoping for different results. That exit she had envisioned sped by in the night.
"You knew this was going to happen." Her words came out part question, part allegation.
"Not this exactly," he hedged, and then finally met her gaze, "But I'm shut out. Obadiah shut me out. I can't stop the flow of weapons from this end," he admitted.
"Obadiah," she breathed out. It was probably the first time she'd said the man's first name. There was a light in the back of her mind, a place where her solution waited. "Do you think…"
"No," Tony cut her off. He rubbed a hand over his mouth. "No, but I think he's going along with it."
"Tony," she called lowly.
"Obie's not a killer," he clipped..
Angela bit her tongue, doubt settling low in her stomach. Rubbing a hand over her own face she changed the subject. "Do you realize what you're talking about doing?" Because it sounded to her like he was considering going around the government, the military, and international law. But, so was she.
"Come sit down," he offered in lieu of an answer.
She followed him back to the couch, feeling the weight of the metal cylinder in her chest press against her ribs. She made herself look at the picture of the Jericho missile again. In her memory the people of her department sat in the R&D conference room and toasted their success. They cheered, and she was so very proud.
Angela took a deep breath in through her nose and made a choice.
…...
They'd been sitting mostly in silence, watching the news, for long enough that the fabrication of the suits was almost complete. She hadn't broached the topic of her decision yet. She didn't know how to. On the TV a story about Gulmira was playing while Tony continued fiddling with the gauntlet of the Mark III.
"The 15-mile hike to the outskirts of Gulmira can only be described as a descent into hell, into a modern day Heart of Darkness." Behind the female reporter a line of dismal people carrying their belongings marched. "Simple farmers and herders from peaceful villages have been driven from their homes, displaced from their lands by warlords emboldened by a new-found power."
Angela grimaced at the phrasing.
"Villagers have been forced to take shelter in whatever crude dwellings they can find in the ruins of other villages, or here in the remnants of an old Soviet smelting plant."
Beside her on the couch she heard the sound of Tony's repulsor powering up and glanced over in alarm. It powered back down almost as fast.
"Recent violence has been attributed to a group of foreign fighters referred to by locals as the Ten Rings."
Angela looked back at the screen in time to see a short video of a Jericho missile that made her face pull into a hateful sneer. In her peripheral vision Tony stilled.
"As you can see, these men are heavily armed and on a mission. A mission that could prove fatal to anyone who stands in their way."
Abruptly, Tony rose from the couch and walked over to the kitchenette. She kept half her attention on him and half on the broadcast.
"With no political will or international pressure, there's very little hope for these refugees."
There was a clang as he tossed the screw driver onto the counter. Angela winced. Doubt crowded the edges of her mind but fizzled away under the heat of her resolve. Her inner Mike was railing at her. She was being selfish. What she wanted to do was crazy, and illegal. It wasn't her problem and she had no business trying to solve it. What was she going to do if Tony's choice was not her own? Did she even think of that?
"Around me, a woman begging for news on her husband, who was kidnapped by insurgents, either forced to join their militia…"
A whine sounded and her gaze whipped back to Tony as he powered up the repulsor and blasted it at the far end of the lab. A light fixture broke and swung down, sparks rained behind it.
She leapt from the couch. The shot wasn't anywhere near her but she still felt that she needed to be able to move. Tony simply regarded the destruction he'd caused and walked forward.
"Desperate refugees clutch yellowed photographs, holding them up to anyone who will stop. A child's simple question, 'Where are my mother and father?'"
Angela flinched, wondering if that child would think she was as culpable for his parent's death as she felt the negligent airline maintenance workers were for hers. Her inner Mike was finally, blessedly, silent.
"There's very little hope for these refugees, refugees who can only wonder who, if anyone, will help."
She had a split second warning where the repulsor charged again, then in three quick moves Tony took out the glass panels on either side of the lab door.
That was her limit. She reached behind her and grabbed the heavy circular pillow from the couch, chucking it like a Frisbee at Tony's side. "Enough," she demanded. The pillow hit his hip and bounced to the floor.
He stood there blinking at her for a moment, before his gaze ran across the broken glass and the pillow on the floor. "Did you just throw a pillow at me?"
"So help me Anthony Stark the next thing I throw at you will do significantly more damage if you do not stop this," Angela threatened. "This," she gestured around the lab, "Does nothing. You are throwing a tantrum like a child." She wouldn't have it.
"I'm reacting like a child?" His face turned ugly and Angela tried to brace herself for her boss's temper. "Who started a pillow fight?" He snapped.
She tilted her chin, both because she had expected something truly nasty to come from him and because he had a point. But she was still exasperated with him throwing a pointless fit. "Well, I was trying to get your attention but you were busy blowing up the lab." she pointed out snottily.
He raised his eyebrows at her in a mocking, expectant way.
Angela raised her hands and gestured to the glass. "Where's your head at?"
Tony's face closed down again into something hard and angry. "Testing a weapon," he announced. "I'm going out."
She felt her own jaw harden. It was what she had expected and what she had been waiting for.
For a moment she hesitated. She could call it off right now. She could go upstairs to bed and leave Tony to go out on his own. She didn't have to do what she was planning to do. It would change things. She would be putting herself on the front lines, choosing to take life instead of just being negligent.
A small, idealistic, part of her - one that she had carried through all the trials of college, through taking an internship in the most competitive department of the most competitive engineering firm in the country, through Italy - curled in on itself as she accepted the truth. She'd been choosing to take life since she started working at SI. The difference was that she was no longer superficially handing off the responsibility to someone else.
Framed that way the situation became clear. Abruptly she turned and walked to her work station.
On the side of her desk was the box that had been dropped off earlier. She opened it and pulled out the two suits she had ordered. Sorting between them, she kept the one with the pull up hood attached in her left hand.
With quick steps she was back across the room and tossing the suit in her right hand at Tony. He caught it and shook it out, dark eyes raking over the garment and then looking back up at her quizzically.
"It's a performance fabric made for moisture wicking with covered seams. I had JARVIS fill in your measurements on the order," she explained shortly.
Tony blinked at her. "When did you order this?"
"What does it matter?" She shrugged. She knew she was being unfair, taking out her raw nerves on Tony. Violence was bubbling within her as well, but the people she were really angry with were either thousands of miles away or in her own head. "JARVIS, how long until the Mark IIIs are finished?"
The man across from her furrowed his brows and glanced warily at the under suit in her left hand.
"Estimated completion time of twenty five minutes," the AI intoned.
"Thank you, JARVIS." When Angela looked back up she could tell Tony was working himself up to saying something. "Don't argue. You said the suits were as much mine as they are yours," she reminded. "This," she pointed at the TV, "Is the same. I'm going to go change." Without a backward look, Angela left the lab.
If she did what she planned she would never get anything resembling her old life back. But if she was honest with herself that had been an unobtainable dream since Afghanistan.
They just weren't doing enough. Closing down the flow of weapons from Stark Industries' end wasn't working. As long as Tony was shut out of the company it would never work. She couldn't leave the house. And though she had her suspicions, she had no proof to make an accusation against anyone who might be selling weapons or trying to kidnap her.
In the end, none of that changed what was happening in Gulmira. The Ten Rings already had her tech. Angela was going to go take it from them.
…...
After she left, via a broken glass wall instead of the door, Tony felt like an asshole. He couldn't have left her in Italy, but he could have chosen not to bring her in on the suits. She'd still have been stuck at his house hiding from people trying to kidnap her, but she wouldn't be headed to Gulmira.
He could still stop her. Even if she had pointed out his own opinion on her co-ownership of the suits he thought she'd back down if he told her no. She'd be furious, but the reality was that she couldn't afford that much gold titanium alloy. It was his machine shop that did the work, his AI co-piloting, and it would be his lawyers that got them out of anything sticky. He could make her stay behind.
The worry that he'd inadvertently pushed her bubbled back to the surface. From the moment he added the weapons to the Mark III design he'd known there would be a confrontation between them. He just hadn't expected the horrible revelations of those photos. He had thought he'd have more time.
Glass crunched under his shoes when he shifted his feet. He felt like the child she'd accused him of being, and he had been lashing out. The need to do something was choking him.
Taking off the gauntlet and replacing it in it's assemble configuration, Tony tried to distract himself. When he finished and got back to the couch, the under suit mocked him. She hadn't even really had to ask what he was thinking, Angela already knew.
His realization from earlier in the night hit him anew, and he felt like he was already letting her down. What was more important - her freedom to make her own choices, or being shielded from potential harm? In the end Tony tried to decide if he had the right to demand she stay home. Regardless of how much he didn't want to see her hurt, if she felt half as culpable as he did, he didn't think so. The Ten Rings had attacked her too, caused the arc to be in her chest as much as they had his.
He closed his eyes in self-recrimination and hoped he wasn't making a horrible mistake.