Get Out of That Car!
Tony's POV
I spent every day of my life since they had appeared trying to hide my words. Almost any time someone saw them, they made fun of me. There I was, a billionaire, who could have and buy anything in the world I wanted, and it seemed that my soulmate was a car thief. One who was going to carjack me when we met.
And every time I went out driving myself in one of my cars, Pepper and Happy made a point of poking fun at me by reminding me not to get the car stolen. I was Iron Man and always had a suit with me; I was pretty sure I could handle one carjacker.
Pepper and I had a good run before she met her soulmate- my longest relationship to date. Obviously I hadn't held it against her when she'd left me for her soulmate. Nor had I accepted the resignation she'd offered. I'd simply helped her move into her own apartment in the tower, told her she could have her soulmate move in whenever she liked, and accepted my new position in her life of best friend.
Watching Pepper find her soulmate though made me eager, for the first time in my life, to find mine. So I'd admit it, I was definitely pushing the issue by driving myself around more and more frequently to my meetings without Happy there for backup. After all, that seemed to be the likely setup for when I would finally meet this woman.
And if the universe was sure that we were meant to be together, then I assumed she had a really good reason for wanting to steal my car. One that I would, I assumed, allow me to be able to forgive her in time.
Still, I hadn't been expecting this day to be the day. True, I was going to Trenton, New Jersey which had a plenty high crime rate, especially in the neighborhood I was going. But it was going to be a mostly abandoned area around a factory I had recently acquired through a subsidiary purchase. I wanted to take a look at it, see what kind of shape it was in, what was around it, and evaluate its value to the company.
It was possible it would be able to be converted into a factory for some new residential arc-reactor inspired tech. There were a lot of things that I was hoping to begin getting into homes soon. Just one step toward helping deal with Global Warming and hopefully make a realistic push for sustainable energy that everyone could afford to use. Hell if I was going to repeatedly save human kind only to watch us destroy ourselves.
I'd also considered the possibility of making it a personal R&D space. Of course, I'd need to beef up security, but I was more than able to do so myself and my research had shown a very promising company in the area I could hire to fill in with a local security presence for it.
Or if I didn't like it, we would put it on the market. It would probably take a while to sell, but that didn't matter. Wasn't going to make or break the year's finances for Stark Industries either way. Still, when I pulled up to the building, I was expecting the area to be completely empty and it was. For about 15 seconds. Then it turned into some sort of battle zone.
A woman came flying out of a narrow alleyway next to where I parked in a piece of shit jeep, and I could hear gunshots and explosions following her. She took the turn too fast and ended up crashing into a power pole in front of me. When she tried to start her car, it wouldn't go. I noticed her looking at something in the back seat then at the alley from which she'd come. A look of resignation crossed her face as she she jumped out of her car and ran toward mine.
"JARVIS, I'm going to be needing that suit ASAP." I could hear things start whirring and barely registered his response. Just as I was getting ready to get out of the car so that JARVIS could put the suit on, she started banging on the window and yelled, "Get out of that car! NOW!"
Huh, I could honestly say that wasn't what I was expecting. When I stepped out of the car, she grabbed onto me and started running away from where the explosions were getting closer and said, "I'm really sorry about your car." Pulling against her, I looked back and saw that her car was full out on fire and watched in horror as that fire reached my car. As I stopped, JARVIS took advantage of my holding still long enough to start snapping suit pieces around me. No sooner had the mask flipped on than JARVIS's voice said, "probability of explosion is 100% and estimated time is 2 seconds."
Turning back to the woman, now fully in my gear, I grabbed a hold of her and took off with her in my arms to the roof of my new warehouse. Carefully setting her on her feet, I walked over to the edge of the building and looked over it, trying to determine if there was still an ongoing threat to my soulmate. Seeing nothing immediate, I strode back over to her, wanting to assess her for injuries. She was sitting on the ground with her head between her legs, hyperventilating and repeating to herself over and over again, "oh my god. I blew up Iron Man's car. I can't believe I blew up Iron Man's car. There is no way I can afford to replace that. He's going to kill me. Iron Man is going to kill me because I blew up his car."
I crouched down in front of her and I reached up an armored hand and tilted her chin up so she could look at me.
"Hey, don't worry about the car, I can afford another. And, I'd definitely prefer if you called me by my actual name."
I slid my face-plate back when her head went back between her knees and she started hyperventilating again. I spoke to her softly until she finally lifted her head again and said, "those are my words," then she shakily got to her feet, smiling and accepting when I offered my hand to help her. Reaching down, she pulled up her pants leg, and I could see my messy scrawl running haphazardly along her calf.
"That's my writing," I confirmed before JARVIS completely on his own pulled back the armor on the inside of my arm so I could show her my words.
She wordlessly nodded her head and looked at me with wide eyes, "I thought you and Pepper Potts?"
"Ah, no. She found her soulmate recently, and she's firmly out of the picture. I was just killing time waiting for you. Tony Stark." I held my hand out to her, and when she took it, I brought it to my lips to kiss it.
"I'm Stephanie Plum, you can call me Steph. And I really am very sorry about your car."
"Considering I spent my whole life thinking you were going to try to steal my car, blowing it up is really a relief."
After looking startled for a minute, then taking in the words again, Steph tilted her head back and let out a laugh so filled with joy that it warmed my war-weary heart. "Sorry to have worried you like that. I've only stolen a car once, and he totally deserved it in the long run."
Yep, this soulmate of mine was going to keep me on my toes, and I had to admit, I was definitely looking forward to it.
A/N: This is the last one I'll post here. If you'd like to read more, find the original with the title "Plum Soulmates" at s/11069866/1/Plum-Soulmates