MARK 2
After a few days have passed, Abel was now inside Tony's personal workspace with him laying on a table. His chest and reactor were exposed.
Abel turned around, holding the new one in her hands. "All right? Ready?" She asked, ready to replace the old one with the new one.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Tony said before giving her a look. "Are you all right to do this?" He asked.
"Are you able to see that exposed wire that's giving you a bit of a short?"
She had him beat on that one. It was either Abel or Pepper, and Tony thought that Abel would be a bit more conformable with it. "No, but... You. Are you sure that your body is all right? Are you able to walk around alright?" he asked worried about her, but Abel only gave him a smile.
"If I wasn't then I wouldn't be up right now. Don't worry about me, please. You're the one on the table."
Abel carefully reached for the arc reactor in his chest. She twisted and it popped right off and yanking the plug out too. So far so good.
"Now..." Tony began. "You're just gonna gently lift the wire out."
"I know. I know. Don't forget that it was I who saved you."
Abel placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned over to get a better angle down. She lifted her hand up and slowly began to decedent into the hole and began to feel around for the copper wire. She finally was able to grasp it and started to pull it out till it was no longer in the hole.
"What are you doing?" Peppers voice suddenly came from behind. Abel jumped out of shock and yank out the magnet that was at the end by accident. Both Pepper and Abel began to panic as Abel quickly set the wire down. "What going on?" Pepper heard the sound of the heart monitor going crazy.
"Nothing, I'm just going into cardiac arrest," Tony said awfully calmly. "Because you caused Abel to yank out the magnet." He called in more of a rushed tone. "Abel!"
"I got it! I got it!" Abel rushed back with the new arc reactor in hand. She reached her hand into the hole. "Baseplate. Baseplate." She mumbled and finally connected it.
"Ye-ow!" Tony yelped as the heart monitors went back to normal. "That wasn't so bad. It could have been worse." He reached up and twisted it back into place. Everything was good.
Abel stood there with this unknown substance on her hands. She gave a weak laugh. "Could have been worse." She mumbled.
Pepper sighed with relief and looked at the old arc reactor. "What about this?" she pointed.
Tony got off the chair and wiped his chest down. "That?" he looked at it. "Destroy it. Incinerate it."
"You don't want to keep it?"
"Pepper, I've been called many things. 'Nostalgic' is not one of them."
Abel eyed Tony and let a smile come to her lips. Nostalgic was something he was definitely. If not, then she wouldn't be here helping him right now.
"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?" Pepper asked.
"That will be all, Miss Potts." Pepper nodded and walked away with the old arc reactor.
Abel began to shut off all the machines. "I'll be heading back for the day too, Tony." She called back.
Tony nodded slightly. "Hey, Abel." He called out without even thinking. "If you want...I can give you a key and we can...work together again."
Abel froze as her heart began to speed up in her chest. She turned around and looked at him. "I can?" She asked, almost in disbelief.
"Yeah. Yes. You can...and maybe...you can help me with my next project." He said, hoping that she would. Trying to steal every chance to get to see her again.
That caught Abel's attention. "What new project." Abel knew what was going on in his company, and that he decided to stop making weapons. She wondered what he was planning now. "All right. Let's see what you got, Tony."
"Jarvis, you up?" Tony asked while typing away at his computer, getting everything ready for the waiting lady at his side.
"For you, sir, always," Jarvis responded.
"I'd like to open a new project. Indexed as 'Mark 2'." He dragged the blueprint design off the screen and pulled it over to the hologram projector where Abel was standing by.
"Shall I install this on Stark Industries central database?"
"I don't know who to trust right now. Let's just keep all this on my private server."
Abel gave a small laugh. "Can you trust me, then?" She attempted to give him a mysterious look that was in fact, working.
Tony shrugged and stood beside her as the old iron suit design came up in the hologram projector. "I think I can. Well, if you wanted to kill me then you had your chance."
Abel smiled and patted him on the back. "Don't worry. I'm only messing with you." She began to strip the old design of all its defects. "But I can understand by you want to keep this a secret. Even I wouldn't want this ending up in the wrong hands. But if it's yours...it may do some good." Abel stared at the design as her head teamed with ideas of what can come of this project.
Tony and Dummy worked on the exoskeleton of the boot of the iron suit. He probed at the boot while Dummy's robotic arm only got in the way.
"Next up. Not the boot, Dummy. Right here. You got me?" He tried to tell the machine what to do.
Abel sat on the other side of the room with the booster controllers in her hand that she was trying to put together. She looked up from her giant magnifying glass and gave them a worried look.
"You're of no benefit at all," Tony said. "Move down to the toe. I got this." The Dummy's long arm moved down. "Okay, I'm sorry, am I in your way? Up. Screw it don't even move." He mumbled. "You are a tragedy."
Abel pushed her legs up and rolled her chair to his side of the workspace. "Is everything alright?"
The suit leg opened up just fine. "Yep."
Abel cut the camera on and pointed it to Tony who had the exoskeleton legs on with the controllers in his hand.
Tony turned to her. "We ready, sweetheart?" Abel nodded and gave him the thumbs up. Tony back up over the testing ground. "Okay, let's do this right. Start mark, half a meter, and back and center." He took a deep breath then looked at Dummy. "Dummy, look alive. You're on standby for fire safety."
"Tony, why don't you start easy. Like 2% thrust." Abel suggested from behind the camera.
Tony waved her suggestion off. "That's to low. We're gonna see if 10% thrust capacity achieves lift." Abel gave him a cautious look but didn't press on. "And three, two, one."
The boosters shot his body in the air and he slammed into the ceiling before falling. It was all under 2 seconds. Abel could hear him suggesting 2% now under groans of pain.
The next course of action was the hand boosters that Abel herself constructed. She strapped the metal bands around Tony's arm and locked them in place.
Pepper then walked down the stairs and unlocked the door, carrying a package in her hand. "I've been buzzing you. Did you hear the intercom?" She asked, setting it down.
"What?" Tony yanked his hand off the arm stand.
"Obadiah's upstairs." She said.
"Great. Great. I'll be right up." He aimed his arm, pointing the ball of light ahead.
"I thought you said you were done making weapons," Pepper asked him.
"This is a flight stabilizer." He assured her "It's completely harmless." He pressed the button and the ball of light charged up and lanced a repercussion blast that sent him flying across the room. "I didn't expect that." He said in a small voice.
Abel frowned and felt a bit disappointed with her own results. "Neither did I."
Tony walked back up from the basement after Abel said she'll stay down and worked on what went wrong and. He heard the sound of piano keys gentle playing.
"How'd It Go?" He saw Obadiah sitting at the piano with pizza on the table. "That bad, huh?"
"Just because I brought pizza back from New York doesn't mean it went bad."
"Sure doesn't." Tony took a slice for himself and had a bite.
"It would have gone better if you were there."
Tony shook his head. "You told me to stay down. I lay low, and you take care of all..."
"Hey, come on." Obadiah walked over to him with glass in his hand. "In Public. The press. This was aboard of directors meeting." He sat down.
"This was a board of directors meeting?"
"The board is claiming you have post-traumatic stress. They're filing an injunction." Obadiah broke it to him.
Abel was walked upstairs but stopped midway after hearing those words fall from Obadiah's mouth. She stood still while still out of sight from everyone else to say, eavesdrop in on the conversation to learn more about what's going on after the news Tony made.
"A what?" Tony lifted his brows.
"They want to lock you out."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Why, 'cause the stocks dipping 40 points? We knew that was gonna happen.
"Fifty-six and a half." Pepper corrected.
"It doesn't matter." Tony raised his voice. "We own the controlling interest in the company."
"Tony, the board has rights, too," Obadiah said regrettably. "They're making the case that you and your new direction, isn't in the company's best interest."
"I'm being responsible! That's a new direction for me, for the company." Obadiah's mouth fell open. "I mean, me on the company's behalf being responsible for the way that..." Pepper gave him a look. "This is great." He rolled his eyes and got up, taking the pizza box with him. "I'll be in the shop."
"Hey, hey!" Hey, Tony. Listen. Obadiah grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him. "I'm trying to turn this thing around, but you gotta give me something. Something to pitch them." He then looked to the arc reactor in Tony's chest. "Let me have the engineers analyze that you know, draw up some specs."
"No," Tony said firmly. "Absolutely not. This one stays with me."
Abel gave a short gasp after hearing the news and bitterly stared at the ground. Her phone suddenly buzzed in her pocket and her ringtone went off loud enough to make her presence known. Abel jumped and struggled to hang up on her phone, but it was too late. Heads turned to her.
Tony leaned forward and spotted Abel a few steps away from the top of the stairs. "What are you doing over there?" He asked her.
Obadiah turned when he heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. His eyes widen when he laid his eyes upon this beautiful, youthful woman who awkwardly came into sight. "Who's your little friend?" Obadiah said in a wispy tone like he was in awe.
Tony noticed Obadiah's eyes and gave him a suspicious look. He stepped towards Abel and grabbed her shoulder. "She's a helping hand, and NOTHING else."
Abel's eyes looked at Tony. "Tony..." She said in a worried whisper.
Tony gave her a pat on the shoulder. "I'll be back down in a moment, Abel." He gave her a little push and she went back downstairs.
Abel looked over her shoulders at Obadiah before disappearing around the corner.
Obadiah shook his head. "Helping hand, huh? You mind if I come down there and see what you're doing?"
Tony descended with the pizza box still in hand. "Good night, Obie.
Tony was now suited up in the arms and legs. "Day 11, test 37, configuration 2.0. for lack of a better option, Dummy is still on fire safety and Abel on camera."
Abel backs up for the sake of safety and pointed the camera at him." "You ready?" She called out.
"Yeah." He nodded. "All right, nice and easy. Seriously, just gonna start off with 1% thrust capacity. In three, two, one." The boosters in both the legs and arms activated and Tony was lifted in the air by a few inches. He hovered there for a moment, swaying back and forth before deactivating and falling back down.
"Looking good." Abel gave him a thumbs up. "Try 2.5 now."
Tony gave her a nervous nod. "Okay. Three, two, one." He activated them once again, but this time he reached a few feet off the ground. He swayed back and forth then started to drift over to the right side of the room and over the expensive cars. "Okay, this is where I don't want to be! Abel! Not the car, not the car!"
Abel followed him around with the camera still on. "You're all right. Don't worry."
Tony flew over the table and the papers on the desks went flying. He pointed his arms up and he began to fly in the opposite direction.
He shot Abel a nervous laugh. "Could be worse! Could be worse! We're fine! Okay." He tried to assure himself as he drifted all over the room. He flew back over to where he began and slowly started to deactivate the boosters until it hit the ground. He gave a sigh of relief. "Yeah, I can fly."