Free falling was a thing that Tony was far too used to. It was a necessary evil when it comes to testing out new suit prototypes. But falling through the air in a titanium alloy suit was far different than tumbling around in jeans and a tee shirt. He tried to spread himself out to slow his descent by a bit, a tactic that worked enough, but he was still falling at worrying speed.
The quinjet was approaching him quickly and he found himself being thrown bodily against the wall separating the pilot seat from the passenger area. The jet quickly leveled itself and closed the door tightly. Tony was left gasping in pain on the floor clutching his ribs.
"What was that?" Natasha asked from the copilot seat as she and Hawkeye flew back to Stark Tower.
"That was fantastic." Tony laughed once he realized that he only had at most a cracked rib. "It was like some crazy trust exercise."
As Tony pulled himself into a chair he could sense a lecture coming from his spangled friend who sat across from him with a disapproving look. "Are you insane?"
"Debatable." Tony replied carelessly.
"You go galavanting about after getting shot and nearly dying. Then pull some crazy stunt by releasing yourself from your suit thousands of feet in the air. All while there is someone with unknown resources trying to kill you."
Tony shrugged off all of the accusations that were spit at him like fire. "Basically." He was met by a disapproving look from Steve and Bruce who was checking for any signs of his stitches coming out. "Do you ever smile Rogers? I'm just wondering cause last I checked I'm still alive."
"Barely," Bruce added, "you were beyond lucky. A fall like that should have ripped out the stitches." He gave Tony an extremely serious look. "You do know that I'm not a medical doctor right, I only have about a years worth of knowledge on the subject. There's only so much I can do when you go jumping around in midair."
"Well considering the last doctor I saw was in a cave in Afghanistan I say you're doing fine." He smiled at the angry glares. "It wasn't even my fault that I had to jump out. Who ever sent soccer mom to kill broke into my suit and locked the thrusters. If I hadn't pulled a Houdini I would be dying in space. Again." Just the thought of floating in the empty vacuum of space was almost enough to send him over the edge. "Given the circumstances I think I did okay."
"What do you mean someone tampered with the suit?" Clint called from the pilot seat as he and Natasha landed the quinjet on Stark Tower's helipad. "Can someone even do that?"
"No I just decided that flying into space would be a fun thing to do." Tony rolled his eyes sarcastically before heading off the landed jet. "Give me some credit. Who ever did this though would have needed some serious equipment to get to break pass my firewalls without alerting Jarvis.
"Could we stop admiring the person who almost killed you for the second time in a day?" Steve said as they reached the bar and Tony prepared himself a drink. "Also the person who is holding a young boy hostage."
"We could," Tony started throwing the drink down all at once hoping it would sooth the shaking in his hands that no one had noticed. "Or we could not. Whoever jumped my suit would have left a fingerprint somewhere I just got to find it. Then we got him."
"You do that Sherlock." Clint sighed as he headed up the stairs to his room. "I'm going to go get some shut eye. Call me the next time you wanna go do something incredibly stupid again."
Grabbing a nearby tablet Tony got to work scanning his network carefully. "You should all do that. This could take a while." He shooed them away casually. "It's past your bedtime kids."
Grudgingly the team went to bed knowing that if Tony tried anything Jarvis would let them know in a heartbeat. So they left the eccentric billionaire to his toys hoping that he would soon put an end to the craziness and they would find a bit of normalcy again.
"Okay show me what you've got." Tony swiped the screen sending projected images like a maze, a visual representation of the complex system that was the backbone of Stark Industries. It looked untouched which was extremely frustrating. "Come on, talk to me."
All night he stood there sifting through hours of worthless facts and what looked like proof of who was messing with Tony's suits but turned out to be red hearings. It took several hours and cups of coffee before he got exactly what he was looking for.
"That's what I call results." Tony cheered his eyes wide from too much caffeine. "Now give me a name."
"Just a moment Sir." Jarvis said as he finished several complex calculations. "Um Sir there is a problem. I don't understand the result I am getting."
"And that result is." Tony knew that even if the name was false it would still be more than he had now.
"Sir the name I found is the one of Justin Hammer."