Disclaimer: Hmm…Iron Man rights…*searches*…nope. Don't have them. Also I don't own Adam Jensen. I just slapped the two together and topped it with BBQ sauce. I need to stop writing when I'm hungry.
Chapter 24: The Heart
Adam Jensen- I Can Hold a Grudge Like Nobody's Business
The knuckles of Rhodey's left hand paled as he clenched it around the steering wheel of his truck. He shuffled his grip on his cell phone, pressing it closer to his ear. Around him traffic moved, and he tried to pay attention, but the shed load of adrenaline dumped into his system was making that difficult.
"What do you mean, he paid to have Tony killed?"
There had to be a misunderstanding. Obadiah had been more of a father to Tony than Howard had.
"I saw the video." Pepper's voice was breathless and quick, the panic in it made the muscles in his shoulders quiver. "The Ten Rings, they sent Obadiah a message after the attack, once they realized who he had contracted them to kill - Tony was in it and he was hurt." An edge of anguish rode the red head's words. Whatever she'd seen had to be bad if she was starting to unravel in public. The airman's mind flashed back to the memory of the sunburned, bleeding, shaking, Tony he'd found kneeling in the middle of the desert.
"Pepper, slow down." He needed more information and she needed to calm down for him to get it. They couldn't deal with this crisis if they both lost their heads.
"Obadiah caught me in Tony's office. He has to know that I was there retrieving information," she fretted. "I'm afraid he might be pushed into action."
Rhodey's muscles, already strung tight, went rigid. "How would Obadiah…?"
"I didn't get a chance to dismiss the download confirmation before leaving," she cut in. "He was acting so strange, suspicious and threatening. I'm sure he would have checked." The metallic clunk of a harshly depressed push bar sounded from her end of the phone. "He was watching me when I walked out. I think the only reason he didn't try to stop me was because I was with Agent Coulson."
Rhodey remembered the bland Agent. He'd been called into his superior's office not long after getting back State side to give account for his own experiences in Afghanistan and Italy. Before Coulson had left he'd asked about how to get in contact with Angela. Rhodey hadn't been sure where she was staying so all he could do was give the Agent the woman's phone number. Of course, later, she had shown up at the base with Tony. He understood that visit better in hindsight.
With a swift glance in his mirrors he pulled a U turn, swinging onto the Pacific Coast Highway and jamming his foot down on the accelerator. Rhodey conceded that Pepper didn't become so frantic without exceptional cause. "Where is Tony now?"
…...
"I don't know." Pepper stretched her legs, clipping along in the stride she usually saved for keeping up when Tony was in a hurry. "He's not answering his phone. I tried calling Angie but she's not answering either." The chill evening air of Los Angeles wrapped around her neck. "I left them both at the house. Please, go over there and make sure everything's okay," she entreated. What if Stane had gone to Tony's house? What if the reason they weren't answering was because they couldn't?
"I'm on my way," Rhodey assured her. She could hear the ramping roar of his engine.
Pepper sucked in a steadying breath. "Thank you, Rhodey." Ending the call, she glanced back at the fan of agents around her. They were scanning the parking garage, a few with hands resting on their sidearms. "I know a shortcut."
When she slid into the driver's seat of her car, Coulson climbed into her passenger seat. Starting the engine, Pepper pulled up Angela's contact and dialed again.
…...
Head tipped back and eyes closed, Angela tried to relax against the back of the couch. A ringing had settled into her ears and she rolled her jaw forward in an effort to relieve it. She finally resorted to stretching her mouth wide before closing it and swallowing deliberately, like popping her ears on a flight. The high whine abruptly cut off, allowing the splash of the water feature upstairs to come back into focus. The low murmur of Tony talking was just audible over it. Either he was ordering one hell of a dinner or he'd gotten distracted.
She pushed herself to her feet, feeling stiff from her brief inactivity and intent on going upstairs. On the desk behind her, her phone buzzed to life. Angela glanced back, changing her intended trajectory and squinting to read the caller ID - Pepper.
A stone of fear settled heavy in her stomach as she swiped to answer. "Pep?"
"Oh, thank God." The sheer relief in Pepper's voice promptly put Angela on edge. It sounded like her friend had expected her to be dead. "Where's Tony?" The red head sounded out of breath.
"Upstairs." Angela's gaze tracked to the still broken glass around the lab door to where the top of the stairs were blocked from sight. "Why?"
"He's not answering the phone." From the PA's end of the line a car door opened and closed. "Obadiah's gone crazy," she hissed. "He paid to have Tony killed in Afghanistan."
The sentence had the same impact as if Angela had smacked face first into a wall. She remembered Garrett's timing when he'd shown up in her office. Then, after she'd survived, Stane's interests in the why's and potential who's in her search - the way he'd locked her out of SI so quickly. And when she'd finally made her way back, the look he'd sent at her chest after their meeting.
"Shit." The exclamation came out as more of an inarticulate breath than an actual word. She was right.
"I'm on my way now with some Agents to arrest him," the red head continued.
Angela's hands trembled. "Pepper, be careful." Other words clogged up in her throat - that Pepper shouldn't go, but realistically the Agent's needed access to and knowledge of the buildings. Without consciously realizing it she started moving towards the assembly area for the suits.
"Just find Tony," the red head pleaded. "I'm afraid Obadiah's done something terrible."
Angela halted in the middle of the room. "He's not answering? Tony's not answering a call from you?" She clarified.
"No," Pepper replied.
Snapping her attention to the stairs again, Angela tried to decide if the voice she had heard was Tony's or if she had just expected it to be him. "Okay. I got it," she assured her friend, switching priorities.
Stane could be in the house right then, and while she felt like she could take the man apart with a screwdriver, the suit was a better bet. Without further explanation, Angela cut the call and tossed her cell onto a nearby chair.
"JARVIS?" She whispered, resuming her trek across the shop. There was no answer and Angela drew in a long dread filled breath through her nose. Her eyes skated across the room before they caught on a blinking command prompt highlighted on her open laptop screen. Angela scuttled back up to the desk. She had no idea if the assembly for the suits would even work if there was something wrong with JARVIS. Getting him back was priority one.
Behind her the subtle whir of the elevator started up. Her eyes widened in panic as she jammed her finger on the key that would open the blinking prompt for a video call between her and Tony. With the short amount of time she had left she ducked down behind the table, picking up a nearby wrench. Breathing shallowly through her mouth, she tried to decide the best course of action if Stane appeared.
The door to the elevator slid open with a thud and she peeked around the side of the table. Abruptly Tony stumbled out into the lab. He paused, bracing his shoulders against the wall and shaking.
Even from where she was, Angela could see the sweat soaking his shirt and the sickly grey pallor of his skin. More alarming was the empty hole in his chest. In her mind's eye it gaped with greater ominousness than the barrel of Bein's gun.
Tony was wild eyed, his chest heaving in an uneven rhythm. He stepped away from the wall and almost immediately fell to the floor.
"Tony," Angela called. Without even looking up at her he started trying to drag himself across the lab on his elbows. Angela's mind spun three steps forward. On the table a few feet from her sat the old Mark I reactor in it's glass case.
She half jumped the distance, breaking the case with a careless wipe of her wrench. Her hands unclenched, dropping the tool to clatter against the concrete as she reached through the shards of glass to pull the obsolete reactor from its stand.
Dodging around the side of the table, Angela dove across the shop to Tony's struggling form. She fell to her knees and roughly flipped him onto his back, eliciting a grunt from him at her harsh treatment.
Hastily wiping her hand on her slacks, and staining them with blood, Angela positioning her fingers on the connector and pushed her hand into the socket in Tony's chest. A giddy thought rose into the back of her head that she'd probably end up sticking her hand back into pus again later.
There was a click as she connected with his baseplate and Tony sucked in a breath. Angela glanced up into his wide brown eyes and then jammed the reactor into the socket. Whatever had been done to get the old one out had half stripped the mechanism to secure the arc.
For a few moments they both stayed on the floor panting.
When color started bleeding back into his face Angela had gathered herself enough to ask, "Was it Stane?"
Tony nodded weakly.
"Is he still here?" She glanced at the doors worriedly.
Tony shook his head and Angela's shoulders sagged.
Without warning, a hand harshly grabbed the back of her head. A startled cry escaped her, her mind flashing back to her apartment - cold stairs under her feet and gun shoved into her back. Before she could react she was pulled down the rest of the way toward Tony and was suddenly being kissed quite desperately. Her hands stuttered in the air, brain telling them to strike at her attacker, but also identifying that attacker as Tony.
He thrust his tongue rudely into her mouth. The action seemed to free her locked synapses. It was Tony, just Tony. Abruptly her hands fell leadenly onto his biceps and her spine slumped, adrenaline leaking out of her.
Despite the initially unpleasant situation, her eyes slipped closed. Tony smelled like sweat, the floor was hard, and Angela had no idea what the hell was going on. One of her hands worked to his shoulder, feeling his tensed muscles under his damp Henley.
He licked across the roof of her mouth before slowing, rubbing against the frozen tip of her own tongue. She must have made some kind of noise, because she had only just begun to appreciate how surprisingly soft his lips were when he released her. Angela pulled back and demanded hoarsely, "What the hell was that?"
"Wanted," Tony gasped, "To do that when you wouldn't hit me."
"I'm still considering it!" And she was. "Ever think I might not appreciate having the back of my head grabbed like that?" Her voice was embarrassingly wobbly.
A shock of recognition crossed his face and he turned to bury his nose against her side in contrition. "Sorry. Shit, I'm sorry."
She waved off his muffled apologies. "We'll deal with this later." That was just, Angela's mind shied away from finishing the thought. Now was not the time for that. They had bigger things to concern themselves with. "Hell," she hissed in exasperation.
…...
Obadiah stood in front of the silver suit of mechanical armor, holding the final piece in his hands. He studied the smooth curve of the helmet and wide reach of the arms with satisfaction. Raza had been right. It truly was a masterpiece of death.
From what he understood about the miniature arc reactor, and why Tony needed it, he figured the boy's corpse was already cooling on his living room couch. He'd check, but later.
Stepping up onto the plinth he carefully connected the reactor to the baseplate in his suit. Once he heard the distinctive click of full contact, he tucked the small glowing piece of tech into his housing. It fully latched in with another click and he could instantly hear the start up whine of the suit. He watched as the narrowed eyeholes of the faceplate slowly flickered to life, and grinned.
…...
Propping an arm under Tony's back Angela helped him sit up. The man still had to lean heavily against her however. She swiped a hand over his forehead, pushing his hair back and taking off a layer of sweat, then wiped it on her pants again. At least her hands had stopped bleeding.
"We need to get you up. I have to go." She observed the way his breathing was still unsteady and took a moment to press two fingers to his pulse. His heart was hammering a fast hard beat but she didn't feel any skips or stutters. "Do you think you can stand?"
He dipped his chin and she began the process of trying to support him while maneuvering herself to her feet. "Why? Where are you going?" He rasped.
Angela forced her knees under herself. "Pepper called," she answered shortly. "Come on. I need your help getting JARVIS going." She got one foot under her and tugged upward on Tony's armpits.
"J?" Tony called, slowly gaining strength back in his voice.
"Here, sir." Angela looked up from her squatting position toward the ceiling. "Miss. Harper was able to open a connection back into the house allowing me to override Mr. Stane's shut down."
Tony tipped his dark head back, giving her a quizzical look over his shoulder.
"I opened a call from my laptop to you," she explained, perplexed over how that allowed JARVIS to reboot himself.
With a sigh, Tony bobbed his head in understanding. "Failsafe," he muttered.
She didn't know exactly what to say to that, so settled for, "We'll talk more about that later too," before moving back to more pressing matters. She tugged under his arms again, barely budging him off the floor. Her knees threatened to buckle. "Jeez, work with me here, you're dead weight."
They both winced over the poor phrasing.
A racket came from up the stairs and someone started yelling Tony's name. For a heart stopping moment Angela didn't recognize the voice. Slowly it resolved into the tones she associated with Jim. A breath of relief left her. "Down here," she called.
"Tony," Jim cried searchingly as he entered the lab. His eyes landed on them and he jogged across the room.
"Help me get him up," Angela commanded, tugging ineffectually at his underarms again.
Jim jogged across the shop. "What is going on? Pepper's freaking out. And you know it's bad when she…"
He was cut off by Tony reaching up to fist a hand in his jacket. "Where's Pepper?" Tony demanded.
Angela met gazes with Jim when he answered. "She's fine. She's with five agents. They're about to arrest Obadiah." Between the two of them they finally managed to get Tony off the ground.
"That's not gonna be enough," he ominously predicted.
…...
Pepper braked hard, stopping her car just before the glass portico of the SI power plant. She wasted no time marching to the security pad and swiping her badge. The doors began sliding open and she squeezed through impatiently, the agents following along behind her.
"Sector sixteen, sector sixteen," she muttered to herself. Once inside she hung a left around the arc reactor, scanning for the entrance to the level beneath. A bright yellow door with black caution markings caught her attention. "There it is," she mumbled.
She led the agents around the control platform for the reactor and over to the door. A discreet scanner waited at its side and she swiped her ID. Nothing happened, the light on the pad remaining red. Scanning her ID again produced no change. She turned back to Coulson in confusion. "My key's not working. It's not opening the door."
The clean cut man imperiously held his right hand out and an agent from behind him placed a small black device in his palm. He took it and strode toward the door unhesitatingly.
"Oh, wow. What's that?" Pepper peered at the object, watching as Coulson placed it on the latch of the door. "It's, like, a little device? It's like a thing that's gonna pick the lock?"
On contact the device started giving off rhythmic high pitched beeps. A light on the side of it flashed. "You might want to take a few steps back," Coulson advised. Following word with deed he retreated to the group of Agents, turning his back to the door.
Pepper spun and jogged through the throng of agents, turning her own back to the door and covering her ears. A few seconds later a small explosion went off and the door popped open.
…...
Busy typing commands into a computer, the small detonation from the vicinity of the door drew Stane's attention. His eyes narrowed and he knew his time was up. He hastily finished the boot up for his suit before crossing to the armor. With a subdued hiss, the silver machine opened and Stane stepped into it.
It was rushed, but the weapon was operational. With the brat dead no one would be able to stop him. As the suit folded back together it obscured the wild grin that stretched across his face.
…...
"How are five agents not enough?" Angela asked as she and Jim helped Tony to the assembly station for his suit. He was insistent that he go with her.
"Stane's got a suit," He answered shortly.
"A suit," Angela breathed in horror. Her eyes traveled down to Tony's chest and she realized that Stane not only had a suit but he had something to power it with.
"How'd he get a suit?" Jim wondered.
Tony shuffled a few steps forward, body still shaky from the shock of near cardiac arrest. "I don't know."
A memory of Gulmira played behind Angela's eyes - the bullets pinging off her armor, the sheer force behind her every motion. Yeah, five agents weren't going to be enough.
She shoved Tony's weight over to Jim. "Hold him," she commanded.
Searching around the nearby work tables, she spotted a utility knife. She marched over to it, ignoring the two men who were wasting time gawking at her. With a flip of her thumb she popped the blade up and then reached toward her chest to grab a handful of her shirt.
"What are you doing?" Jim asked.
Angela attacked her fistful of material with the blade, finally resorting to violently tearing the last bit away. The result was an oversized jagged hole that showed part of her bra on one side. She didn't care. "The connection to the arc has to be clear or the Mark III won't hold power," she explained.
Dropping the knife, she rounded the table and stepped into her assembly station. "JARVIS, start it up," she commanded.
The floor around her broke apart and Angela balanced herself with her arms up at her sides. Within a few moments the bright yellow mechanical arms were assembling the Mark III around her. She gripped the hand holds, attempting to stay as still as possible. Over the whine of gears she pointedly called, "If he's going to go then get him into his station. I'm not waiting. I'll leave without him," she threatened.
Jim and Tony both jolted before hustling awkwardly to Tony's own assembly station. Jim kept a hand on the unsteady man's shoulder as he stepped into his boots.
Breathing through her nose, Angela tried not to think about Pepper out there with Stane in his very own suit. Around her the quiet clicks and whirs of the armor coming together sounded.
Across from her she could see that Tony was finally standing on his own, halfway through assembly himself. Angela abruptly remembered that the Mark I chest piece had been built in a cave. She wondered at it's capacity.
Dropping her arms she straightened her posture and closed her eyes, allowing the machines to attach the neck and rear part of her helmet. When her faceplate was connected, she pushed it closed manually and stepped down the ramp.
Angela reached for the place inside her that had gotten her through installing an electromagnet in her chest. It was the same place that, years before, had gotten her through being strangled in an elevator, and more recently convinced her to pull a gun out of an attacker's hands and turn it on him. A cold, unrelenting sense of purpose settled into her heart. She wasn't going to be sorry about what she had to do.
She knew sending Pepper was a bad idea.
"That's the coolest thing I've ever seen," Jim announced, glancing between the two of them.
"Not bad, huh?" Tony asked. He stepped off his own platform and headed toward the crushed Shelby. "Ready?" He called back to her. With a raise of his hand he blasted the car out of the way.
Angela made her way over to him. "Ready."
Tony turned back to Jim.
"You need me to do anything else?" Jim asked.
Tony shut his face mask and commanded, "Keep the skies clear." He kicked on his thrusters and shot out through the roof. Angela only paused for a second before following. Once she cleared the house she oriented herself on Tony's tail and pushed everything she could into the thrusters.
…...
Rhodey watched the light from Angela's repulsors disappear up through the building. "Damn," he murmured.
He glanced over toward a silver suit suspended upright on a hoist. The things he could do with that. "Next time, baby," he promised.
Walking over to Tony's Audi, he slid behind the wheel. He needed to get to Edwards fast. The last thing they wanted that night was a showdown between Angela, Tony, and military fighter jets over Los Angeles.
…...
Coming down a narrow set of stairs, the agent in front of her stopped at a door. Pepper bit her lip as Coulson pulled his gun. A glance behind her confirmed the other agents had their weapons in hand as well.
Coulson pulled open the door, which creaked loudly. A rush of cool, slightly stale, smelling air filled the stairwell. She had little hope that if Stane was there their noise hadn't alerted him.
The group walked along the metal catwalk, passing through a series of relays. They rounded a corner and she caught the first glimpse of a man sized metal suit. It was crudely made, bulky, and unfinished looking.
"Looks like you were right," Coulson commented. "He was building a suit."
She shook her head slightly. "I thought it'd be bigger." The design she saw suggested a much larger machine. If what was in front of her had been the outcome, significant changes had been made to the plans.
A low rattling sound from behind her caught her attention. It was accompanied by the light tinkle of moving chains. Taking a step in the direction of the noise, she found what looked to be a harness station with wires that had been broken by something's removal. The broken connections sparked intermittently.
Around her the agents began to spread out, searching, and Pepper tried to keep her composure. The light from the reactor above them played along the walls, making shadows. She hung near the staging area, peering up at the bottom of the great, blue heart of SI.
The clinking rattle of chains moving behind her again drew her attention. She turned, taking a few steps closer and peering into the dark beyond the swinging links. A sudden shriek of moving metal made her stumble backwards. From out of the shadows twin lights, eyes that raised higher and higher above her, shone.
Pepper screamed in alarm as the massive metallic suit reached an arm towards her. With a quick spin on her heel she began running back toward the entrance. She passed the agents, their guns raised and firing on the thing chasing her. Great thuds, that reverberated through the floor, continued to follow.
Behind her came the sounds of more shots, crashes, and explosions. Ahead of her she could see the flashes from the sparking equipment lighting up the walls. She ran towards her own shadow, restrained in her stride by her skirt.
Just as she passed through the door there was a final deafening slam. Pepper didn't turn back to see what it was. Stane had just mown through several government agents without pause.
She was alone.
…...
Note: So I thought this was done yesterday, did a final read through and was like, nope, need to fix this and this. You get the idea. An extra hundred words and several sections rewritten later and I'm calling it done.