Allie

III

Lucky for us I have my Stark credit card and my phone in my pocket when the house blew up.

When we get to the nearest hotel I pull out my Stark card and check us into a large suite under the name Natasha Rogers. It's an alias I know Steve and Nat will recognize when they come for me.

III

Inside the room the television is mysteriously turned on.

"If I had to guess the maids had it on when they were cleaning," Maya concludes, answering a questions I hadn't asked.

I nod and raise an eyebrow at the soap opera playing.

Suddenly the screen goes black and the Mandarin's symbol flashes across.

"Mr. President, only two lessons remain. And I intend to finish this before Christmas morning."

The dark voice sends shivers down my spine.

"Meet Thomas Richards."

The camera suddenly zooms out to reveal a crying man tied up on the grimy floor at the Mandarin's feet.

"Good strong name, good strong job. Thomas here is an accountant for the Roxxon Oil Corporation. And I'm sure he's a really good guy." The Mandarin gives a faux kind smile but then pulls a gun from seemingly nowhere and points it at Thomas. "I'm gonna shoot him in the head, live on your television, in thirty seconds."

"Oh god," I breathe as the man begins crying. The Mandarin gestures to a telephone placed next to him with his free hand.

"The number for this telephone is in your cell phone. Exciting, isn't it? Imagining how it got there. America, if your president calls me in the next half-minute, Tom lives." He pauses and gives a withering look at the camera. "Go."

"Please," I utter and hold my hands tightly together.

Terror has frozen me in place and the anxiety makes the seconds passes feeling like an eternity.

The phone rings and I let myself breathe in relief.

But then the Mandarin abruptly shoots Thomas dead on the screen.

"Oh god!" I squeak in surprise and jump back. My stomach lurches and I keel over.

"There's just one lesson left, President Ellis. So run away, hide, kiss your children goodbye. Because nothing, not your army, not your red, white and blue attack dog can save you!"

The Mandarin pauses and allows the message to sink in and then makes a deadly promise.

"I'll see you soon."

The screen goes black and the soap opera returns.

III

Gabie

III

"Stop being such a bad driver," I grumble to Tony as I attempt to wrap my shoulder. I rip a strip of cloth off Tony's plaid shirt.

"I'm a great driver," he defends and I roll my eyes.

Finally I manage to knot the cloth in just the right place and it holds.

"Okay we're good, I can look at that file now," I announce and open up Chad Davis' file.

"What's it say?"

"Well it's an MIA personal file," I start and Tony seizes up. "Does that mean something to you?"

"Flip it over," he says and I do.

"Now it just says AIM," I comment and Tony swears under his breath.

"Dammit, of course," he hisses. "Killian."

"Killian as in the guy who pitched Extremis to Pepper?" Immediately I hear my own words and the dots connect. "AIM must be behind this."

"Yeah but I have to make sure, give me the phone," he requests as I pass the the stolen phone to him. He got it off Savin's body as well as he keys.

He dials with one hand and drives with the other, once it starts ringing the cars Bluetooth picks it up.

"Hello." It's a man who answers, someone Tony must know.

"Did you ever have a chick straddling you and you look up and suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?" Tony questions somewhat sarcastically and I facepalm.

"Yeah, I've had that," the man huffs totally not meaning it. "Who is this?"

"It's me, pal. Now last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me," Tony responds cheekily.

"Tony is this your stilted gay lover? Is that why you slept with all those woman!?" I remark with faux horror.

"I like how your snark is coming along kid," Tony returns.

"If you think eighteen is being a kid then Stark I hate to tell but-"

"Nope! Don't finish that sentence!"

"Wait who is this now?" Rhodes queries.

"Gabie Trent."

"Oh Thorn In Your Ass Number One," Rhodes concludes and I gasp.

"Tony you catty bitch!"

"Alright that's enough you two!" Tony exclaims and silences our sniggering.

In Tony's head I can see him and 'Rhodey' have been friends for awhile.

"What are you doing?" Tony asks to put the exchange back on track.

"A little knockin' talking, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?" Rhodes returns.

"Your re-design, your big re-brand, that was AIM, right?"

"Yeah." Tony reaches over and crumples a piece of the file in frustration while swearing under his breath.

"I'm gonna find a heavy-duty comsat right now, I need your login," Tony states.

"It's the same as it's always been, War Machine 68," Rhodey answers.

"And password please?"

"Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack in, Tony," Rhodey says evasively.

"It's not the eighties, nobody says 'hack' anymore. Give me your login."

"War Machine Rox with an X, all caps," he admits reluctantly making me and Tony laugh. "Yeah, okay."

"That is...so much better than Iron Patriot."

III

"Chattanooga is lovely this time of year," Tony remarks and I frown.

"What does that mean?"

"They have a televised pageant tonight," Tony says and I glower. Of course this Amman knows when a televised pageant is happening and where. "I can use a news van to log in."

"Please tell me this knowledge is ingrained into your head from before you met Allie."

"I was a different guy. Having a soulmate, particularly one like Allie, changes a person," he murmurs and I smile slightly.

"Alright lover boy, how close are we to Chattanooga?"

"Thirty seconds form the pageant hall," he reports and suddenly brings the car to a stop.

I jolt, how did I not notice all the news vans, people, and the pageant hall?

"Which van should we break into?" Tony asks and I sit up to examine the vans. Most are crowded with an entire crew but one only seems to be run by a single man.

"The one with only that guy," I suggest and Tony nods.

"Good, now put your jacket on over that shoulder, you look like a murder victim." I huff and pull on the jacket reluctantly.

Once outside the car Tony wraps an arm around me and puts on a huge goofy smile. On his other arm he carries a mess of cords and on his head that stupid cowboy hat sits.

"Act natural wifey," he teases and I splutter in anger and shock.

"After this I am going to kill you," I promise but put on a convincing grin.

We walk closely and giggle every minute or so blend in.

No one takes notice, we are acting like every other couple here.

As we approach the van, the man working at it steps out to make a call. Tony and I take our chance and duck inside. The second he shuts the van door behind us I punch his shoulder.

"I don't care if it's life or death Stark, we are never doing that again," I growl and he chuckles.

"Of course wifey," he teases and sits at the news vans computer. I take the chance to pull off the cowboy hat and toss it aside.

He attempts to logging but the files won't open.

"What's wrong?"

"Not enough service, this ain't gonna cut it," he replies in annoyance.

Suddenly the cameraman that was making a call opens the door. I go rigid and so does Tony.

"Excuse me, sir. I don't know who-"

"Ssh..." Tony coos with a finger on his lips and slowly turns around to face the man. I inhale deeply and face him as well.

The cameraman's eyes widen and he gawks at Tony. Tony grins back and the man looks as if he'll explode.

"Surprise we're strippers for your birthday?!" I pause and frown, shaking my head. "Yeah that wasn't going anywhere."

"Mom, I need to call you back, something magical is happening," he squeals and hangs up abruptly. He beats you ignores my comment.

"Ssh," Tony repeats and holds his hands out for the man to quiet down.

"Tony Stark is in my van," the man gasps and practically jumps into the van closing the door behind him. He pulls his sunglasses off in excitement and to get a better look at Tony.

"Keep it down," Tony warns but the man is too excited.

"Tony Stark is in my van!" he repeats.

"No, he's not," Tony denies and I roll my eyes.

"I knew you were still alive!"

"Takes more than a bomb to get us down," I comment, mostly to myself.

"Wow, can I just say, sir? That I am your biggest fan," he proclaims.

"Okay. First, is this your van, is anyone else gonna come in?" Tony questions clearly.

"No, no, no. It's just us."

"What's your name?" Tony asks.

"Gary."

"Gary," Tony repeats and shakes his hand. Gary uses his other hand and holds Tony's for a minute too long.

In his head I can see Gary has been daydreaming about this moment for years.

"Oh, wow," he gasps.

"Right there's fine," Tony says gently and pulls from Gary's grip.

"Okay, sorry," Gary apologizes hastily and steps back.

"I get a lot of this, it's okay," Tony assures and Gary grins wider if that's even possible.

"Oh, good. Can I just say?"

"What do you... " I give Tony a pointed look and he stops short. I know a rude comment was going to follow. "Yeah."

"I don't know if you can tell, but I have like, patterned my whole look after you," Gary conveys enthusiastically and pulls off his hat to show off his Tony Stark hair. "My hair's a little...it's not right."

"It's fine," Tony and I say.

"Because there's no product in it," Gary finishes. He seems to take no notice to me, he's consumed by Tony.

"Right," Tony agrees.

"I don't wanna make things awkward for you-"

"You're not," Tony insists after I give him another look.

"But I do have to show you...boom!" He pulls up the sleeve on his plaid shirt and proudly displays a tattoo of Tony's face.

"A Hispanic Scott Baio?" Tony asks in confusion. The face doesn't look quite right but Tony should know it's him.

"Tony it is you obviously," I utter to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is that me?" Tony corrects not at all apologetic. I know this is freaking him out but we need this his help so he should play nice.

"Yeah. It's uh... I mean, I had them do it off a doll that I made, so it's not like it's off a picture. So it's a little bit..." Gary's stammerings trail off and he looks down sheepishly. Tony huffs impatiently and grabs Gary's shoulders to make the man look at him.

"Gary, listen to me, okay? I don't wanna clip your wings here, we're both a little over-excited. I got an issue. I'm chasing bad guys, trying to grapple with something from some hard-crypt data files. I don't have enough juice. I need you to jump on the roof, right? Recalibrate the ISDNs, pump it up by about forty percent," Tony instructs sternly.

"Got it."

"Right, it's a mission," Tony adds and increases Gary's enthusiasm.

"Yeah," he pants.

"Tony needs Gary," Tony states and Gary lights up even more.

"And Gary needs Tony-"

"Be quiet about it," Tony cuts off intently.

"Yeah."

"Go." Gary quickly scrambles from the van leaving me to begin cackling.

"Oh my god! That was adorable!" I laugh and Tony rolls his eyes. "That man is in love with you."

"What can I say? All genders wanna piece of this pansexual ass," Tony brags and makes a show of sitting down in a suggestive manner. I huff and cross my arms, trying not to roll my eyes. My poor eyes are beginning to get sore from all the eye rolls.

His gaze returns to the screen and we wait for the better connection.

A minute or two passes until Gary pats the top of the van twice signaling he has finished.

Tony then makes quick work of logging into the AIM server.

The first thing he opens are the candidate profiles.

A video of Chad Davis pops onto the screen. He's being interviewed by Killian.

"What would you regard as the defining moment of your life?" Killian inquires.

"Well, uh...I think that'd be the day I decided not to let my injury beat me," Chad responded.

Tony pages over to the footage of Brandt, who didn't have an arm at the time of the interview.

"Will you please state your name for the camera?" Killian requested.

"Ellen Brandt."

"Okay. So, the injections are administered periodically. Addiction will not be tolerated and those who cannot regulate will be cut from the program," Killian informed and she nodded along.

Tony then clicks over to a video of Killian giving a speech to a group of injured soldiers.

"Once misfits, cripples...you are the next iteration of human evolution."

Then he finds it, a video of Project Extremis, Phase 01.

It's video of injured soldiers marching into a cement room and being strapped into standing machines and hooked up to IV's.

"Hi, everybody. Before we start, I promise you, looking back at your life there will be nothing as bitter as the memory of that glorious risk that you prudently elected to forego. Today is your glory. Let's begin!" Killian proclaimed loudly.

As the soldiers start getting injected with the treatment, they start to glow red and heat up. Brandt's arm began to burn its way back into existence as she cried and hisses in pain.

One soldier started screaming and glowing brighter than the others.

"We gotta get out of here! Gotta get out of here! Get 'em out! Get 'em out of here!" Killian yelled desperately.

The soldier that had rejected the treatment suddenly heats up and explodes on screen.

The image brings a startling memory back to me.

Taggert was the bomb, I am sure of it now.

Tony frowns and starts murmuring to himself as he puzzles it together.

"A bomb is not a bomb when it's a misfire. This stuff doesn't always work, right, pal? It's faulty, but you found a buyer, didn't you? Sold it to the Mandarin. Got you."

I go silent and still, Allie has to know this. If she doesn't have all the information it could endanger her.

Slowly I reopen the bond only to jolt abruptly and grab Tony's arm as sharp pain enters my mind.

"Gabie! Killian! Cl-closing with dru-"

And then the bond slams closed.

Allie is in trouble.