Little Bird's Vengeance Chapter 57 Helping Out
"This situation is a total mess," Cassie moaned. She, Kon and Bart had retreated to the roof after Barton and Romanoff had taken Tim and Jason away. "And that idiot insists on keeping everything to himself!"
"Be fair; Rob's much better at whatever it is than we are," Kon said, slightly bitterly. Tim's well-established habits of working himself to the bone irritated everyone who cared for him.
"According to him," Cassie pointed out. "I'm sure we can support him."
"He's spending so much time trying to keep Hood safe he doesn't have much time for anything else," Bart mused. "And when he's not defending Hood, he's trying to co-ordinate the interdimensional research."
"And then he's getting upset because his crime fighting projects get neglected," Cassie sighed. "We're not useless to him, but I think he isn't being given enough time to work out how to use us."
"You want to bypass him and do some of his work for him while he's busy," Kon guessed.
"He's great at co-ordinating us, when he remembers not to go all Lone Ranger," Cassie complained. "I propose we give him a figurative kick up the backside, remind him he's got untapped resources, and basically make sure he knows we want in."
"How are we going to find out what he's been working on?" Kon frowned.
"We can ask the computer," Bart shrugged. "The AI thing. Jarvis."
"How may I help you?" the unseen voice spoke up.
"We want to know everything Red Robin's been researching since he arrived in this world," Cassie said.
"I will start displaying the data in the office he has been using," the AI offered.
Cassie watched. After a little experimentation, Bart and Jarvis had discovered the computer's fastest runtime was somewhat slower than Bart's 'normal' top speed, but still faster than non-augmented senses could perceive – and a little faster than he and Kon could follow. Bart had volunteered to take on the task of running through everything and working out the salient points of the six weeks of research. A screen now constantly spooled information, while Bart flickered back and forth to a virtual whiteboard.
"That's it," the speedster said at last. "I've roughly divided it according to subject matter. We've got research relating to the interdimensional incident, including looking at Drs Foster and Ross. If we want to understand that, we'll have a lot of hard physics to catch up on. There's a couple of random pieces of research that don't directly tie into anything else – he spent a while getting a quick overview of the criminal underworld, there's the research he did on that bit of Spiderman's webbing that crystallised around Red Hood's bullet, a few other things. Then we have the work he's been doing on criminal incidents. The assassination attempt on Stark a month ago has led to leads regarding ex-employees of a company called HammerTech, a competitor of Stark Industries, and another one on some mercenaries. Then there's the suit-stroke-drone incidents; he reckons they've hijacked the designs of someone called Ivan Vanko. He's got a note saying that he's requested SHIELD look into this Middle East terrorist group called Ten Rings regarding the incident we and the Avengers dealt with over there. Then there's the blip with the cops and the drugs, and the Sons of the Serpent killing."
"Right," Cassie murmured, looking at the neat lists Jarvis generated. "Let's start with the first one. What's going on with this HammerTech?"
"If I may?" Jarvis interrupted.
"Go ahead," Cassie shrugged.
"HammerTech took over from Stark Industries as the armed forces' preferred weapons supplier after Stark Industries pulled out of the weapons market," the AI recounted. "However, there were widespread attempts to recreate the Iron Man suit worldwide. Justin Hammer recruited Ivan Vanko, the son of a Soviet defector and one-time partner of Howard Stark. Vanko had used his father's knowledge to construct a predecessor to the Whiplash suit and attacked Tony Stark. Hammer had him sprung from jail, faking his death in the process. Vanko created a series of drones, and Hammer presented them at the Stark Expo. Vanko took control and tried to destroy Mr Stark. Vanko perished when his suit self-destructed, and Hammer was arrested. As a result, his business went under, a large number of his employees lost their jobs, and some were blacklisted."
"And they blame Stark for their misfortune," Cassie nodded. "What kind of leads did Rob have?"
"He has a description of the guy who hired the gunmen, armed them and pointed them at Stark," Bart said. "SHIELD found a couple of security camera clips, and made up illustrations."
"Is there any correlation between these ex-Hammers we can use to trace any others who might take a pop at Stark?" Cassie asked.
"Yeah, they're all New York residents, and are now pretty broke," Bart informed her. "They're getting a combination of revenge and pay check."
"If Stark's mystery enemy is paying these guys, why doesn't he get professionals?" Kon asked.
Cassie shrugged. "Ask Rob when we get a chance?" she suggested. "Let's leave that one. Can we do anything about these suits and drones and things?"
"Only if we can find them," Bart sighed. "And there've been three different locations, on a global scale."
Cassie frowned at the list of notes. "This guy Vanko," she said slowly. "He's from the former Soviet Union. Did he, perhaps, leave any notes at home?"
AN: Yes, this story is back! A large part of this chapter came from me rereading the old chapters and realising I had a lot of threads that got dropped without being concluded.
Over the last few months, I had a couple of ideas, and I think they're going to be woven into this story. It's going to be insane.
So, also this week, we have Jason and the Argonauts, with a slightly more unusual team-up. In Black and Red, there is the conclusion to the "zoo incident". Finally, we have a quick little Harry Potter one-shot (there was one last week too; accidently filed under Esperanto, which was embarrassing).
Next week, more here, more JA, more B&R.
Please review!
Katara