Tony's "Children"
Once again, the elevator arrives at its destination without a problem. It's shiny metal doors slide open once more, revealing a well-lit circular room. All of them exit the elevator and the doors behind them close. Curious about what Tony was going to show her, Angela decides to glance around the room, trying to pick up any sign she could. A sign that would assure her that Tony could help in the repair of her hyperdrive engine.
Looking to her left, Angela notices more tool chests, lined up along the wall and with some drawers that were slightly opened. Looking almost straight in front of her, she notices, in the middle of the room, a clear topped table with lots of pieces of silver and red colored metal, like the vehicles she saw in the basement. She walks over to take a closer look with Steve right beside her, while Tony goes over to the right side of the room, so that he can show her why he might be able to help her in the repair of her Starfighter.
Reaching the table, the Jedi picks of an almost flat piece of red and silver metal. She flips it over to look at both sides of it. Looks like scrap metal. Knowing Steve is right beside her, she turns towards him and holds up the metal piece to his and her eye level.
"Do you know what this may be?"
Steve reaches out and takes the piece of metal softly out of Angela's hands. He only looks over it a moment before telling her his thoughts.
"It looks like a piece of Tony's armor." He looks at the top of the table, staring at the other pieces of metal. "It looks like he hasn't finished it though." After his statement, he puts the metal he is holding back onto the table carefully, so that it would not damage the clear, glass top.
"If the two of you would step closer to me and stand on my left, I will begin the Show and Tell." Tony rubs his hands together, preparing himself for what he was about to show off to Angela and Steve.
Following Tony's suggestion, Angela and Steve move to stand on his left and closer to the platform he was on.
Tony clears his throat before beginning his little "speech" he had prepared on the elevator; then he begins.
"Angela, I believe I can help you repair your Starfighter. However, you are probably thinking: 'How is this guy going to be able to help me repair my Starfighter, when most doors on this planet so far have to be opened manually?' Well, that is why we are in this room. Before I show you what I do, you will need a little background information first, so I'll make this as quick as I can without leaving out the details."
"Awhile back, I used to be a weapons manufacturer, but that quickly changed. After seeing my tech fall into the hands of people using it to gain power instead of freedom and peace, I quit making weapons for the military. Now, instead of weapons, I create suits. Not like fancy suits you wear to formal events and stuff. These suits, I use for protecting others that can't protect themselves and I man the suits, so that they don't fall into the wrong hands."
"Also, these suits are far more advanced in technology than any other technology on the planet. That is why, with the exception of three suits, only I can use them. Thirty-nine of the forty-two suits register to my unique body signatures."
"This is why I think that I can help you with the repair of your hyperdrive on your Starfighter. I'm probably one of the few people who will be able to understand the technology you have in there... and to prove my point, allow me to introduce you to my newest suit."
Tony waves the back of his hand at Angela and Steve. "You two might want to take a few steps back."
Not wanting anything to go wrong, they move a couple of steps any from the platform but stay on his left side.
"And now, without further delay, Mark 42." Tony thrusts his left arm forward so that it is pointing to the table that Angela and Steve were previously at. A high-pitched whooshing noise comes from one of the metal pieces on the table top. Angela and Steve both stare with great intrigue as a metal piece rises from the table and flies quickly to Tony's outstretched hand. The metal piece surrounds Tony's hand all the way to his wrist, clicking together so that it fits perfectly.
Steve looks from the table to Tony. "That's it? That's not a suit, Stark. That's only a metal glove."
Raising both of his arms so that they out from his sides, Tony responds to Steve's remark. "Steve, that was the introduction. Now, it's time for the main show."
Suddenly, the same noise that came from Tony's metal glove sounds again form the table, only this time it's louder. One by one, pieces of Tony's suit lift off from the table and fly towards him. First, the left arm pieces arrives and clicks onto Tony's arm, locking itself with the glove piece that was already there. Tony's other arm was soon covered with the armor by both the arm and glove piece. A couple of seconds later, Tony's was wearing all the pieces of armor, except the two pieces that were to go together for his head.
"Wow."
Tony looks over at Angela, who was now climbing up the platform. "So, how did you call the pieces to you? From what I could tell, you weren't using the Force."
Still looking around the room for his pieces to his helmet, Tony answer the Jedi. "Oh. I wasn't using the Force. I put chips in my left forearm that allow me to control the pieces."
Noticing that Tony was looking around the room, Steve asks "Are you looking for your head piece, Stark?"
Tony once again outstretches his armored, left arm and tries to call the two armor pieces to him. "Yeah. They aren't coming to me."
"They?" Steve asks this while moving around the huge room, looking for the armor pieces.
"Yeah. It's two pieces."
"Do you remember where you last put them?"
"Um," Tony moves his eyes left to right, trying to remember where he would have put them besides the table, but he can't remember. "No. I don't remember."
Steve bends down to look under one of the tool chests. "Figures." Realizing something, Steve stands straight and looks at Tony. "Why don't you help look for it?"
"Because I have my suit on. I don't want to scratch up the floor. I just had it redone."
Steve just rolls his eyes and continues around the room searching for the pieces of armor.
Well, at least I'm doing something. I feel out of place here. I, mean, those two know what to talk about when it comes to technology. I still don't know how to work my cell phone, let alone understand how it works.
While Steve keeps looking around the room, Tony keeps trying to call his armor to him, but it still does not come.
"I don't understand." He continues to fling his left arm out, but the head pieces still did fly to him. "They should come to me. The other pieces did, which means the chips in my arm are aligned right."
Angela looks to her right at Tony. "I have an idea."
Tony looks at her. "What is it?"
"Try to clear your mind of everything and just try to sense where the armor might be." Angela shows Tony how to do so. Standing straight, with her hands at her side, she closes her eyes.
"Do what I do."
Following the words of the Jedi, Tony moves his armored arms to his side and closes his eyes.
"Is this a training exercise that Jedi do often?"
"Focus."
"Right. Sorry."
Clearing his mind, Tony tries to clear everything from his mind. Clear my mind...it's harder than I thought. Tony lets out a deep breath and continues to clear his mind.
Angela senses Tony is trying to clear his mind so that he can sense and call his armor pieces to him. With that being the case, she stays right by him and becomes deathly quiet so that it will not make Tony think of anything but his armor pieces.
Meanwhile, Steve continues to look around the room for Tony's armor.
You would think for someone who needs to know where and how the pieces of his armor work would at least know where they might be. I should have learned by now to expect the unexpected, especially with Tony.
Having looked on the far side of the room, Steve goes back to where the tool chests were, aligned along the wall that was opposite of where Angela and Tony were standing. He notices that some of the drawers were cracked open.
Maybe. Since the tool chests all had wheels on them, Steve decides to move the one with the most drawers open first. Maybe, he set the pieces on top of one of these tool chests, but he set them near the back edge along the wall, and then looked for a certain tool, but he, then, got distracted or left and they fell behind one of them. Gripping the back corner of the middle chest, Steve easily but slowly rolls it away from the wall.
Having cleared his mind, Tony focuses in on his two armor pieces. They aren't on the table...they aren't to my right. They're... He suddenly realizes where he had left them. Opening his eyes, he states where they are. "They're near the middle tool chest," he says while pointing at it.
By this time, Steve had just rolled the metal chest away from the wall. The sound of something hitting the floor followed. Looking down, Steve sees the two pieces of armor, lying beside each other on the floor. He reaches out to pick them up, but the armor has other plans.
Activating their thrusters, the two pieces quickly rise from the floor and fly straight at Steve's face, but Steve falls to the floor just before the metal pieces hit his face. The pieces continue on their course, with the head piece that surrounds the head, in front. Tony braces himself.
The first piece makes it, surrounding itself around Tony's head and clicking into place. Right behind it the mask piece flies to the open spot and clicks also into place, locking itself with the other head piece.
Inside the helmet, Tony is in darkness until the screen starts up. All of the holographic images appear and begin functioning. Looking out of the helmet, he sees Angela move from his left until she stands right in front of him.
"So you are able to see and hear inside the suit of armor?" Angela taps on the face mask with the back of her right pointer finger.
"Absolutely." Tony's voice sounds hollow coming from inside the suit. "It can also fly, scan anything it locks onto, and if I must, I can pilot the suit without being in it."
A smile crosses over Angela's face. "Wow."
After picking himself off the floor, Steve makes his way over to where Angela and Tony were talking together.
"Amazing, Stark." He pauses briefly before continuing. "You didn't mention to me that you had forty-two suits of armor. By the way," he states this while looking around the room. "where are the other forty-one suits?"
After a very brief moment of silence, the front of Mark 42 starts to open up by unlocking certain pieces. Once it was done opening completely, Tony walks out of the open armor and gives Steve an answer.
"Well, one of them is now with a buddy of mine and the rest our at my other house in California. I brought Mark 42 to New York to work on him while I over saw the complete repair of the building since it was damaged by the Chitauri."
Looking away from the Iron Man suit, Angela walks from behind Tony and joins in the conversation, but also changes the subject. She looks at the suit behind Tony once more, then at him.
"That suit is pretty advanced in technology as far as I could see." Angela's right hand outstretches to Tony, who in an involuntary response, puts his own right hands forward and grips her open hand firmly. His hand moves up then down along with hers.
"I think that you will be able to help me in the repair of my hyperdrive." She lets go of Tony's hand after several firm shakes.
Putting her hands on her hips, Angela feels and remembers the weapons at her side. She removes the one on her left side with her right hand by pulling it from her customized belt she had made years ago. Her hands starts to rotate the hilt around and around, showing off its pearl and black finished pieces to the eyes that were staring at it: Angela's, Steve's, Tony's.
She looks up from the weapon, looking around the room. Just noticing the windows that surrounded the outer edge of the room, she walks off the platform and towards them while placing the lightsaber back at her side.
Steve follows the Jedi to the windows as well, while Tony tells Mark 42 to power down and walks off the platform himself.
The huge city outside the windows was still as far as the Jedi could see. All around were buildings of all shapes and sizes. On the ground below, Angela could barely make out the people still walking on the concrete sidewalks and the cars driving on the paved streets. Raising her head back up from looking below her, she notices an orange light in the horizon, hiding behind the tall buildings in front of it.
"Beautiful isn't it?"
Turning her head to the right, she notices Steve looking back at her. "The Sun. Our Sun. That is." Steve quickly looks away from the Jedi, turning back to the beautiful setting sun.
Angela nods to herself. "Yeah... yeah. It is." The eyelids of the Jedi grow heavy as the three of them watch the sun go below the horizon in the distance. After the pain and injury inflicted upon her over the last few days, her body was in need of some rest from healing herself and fast. She felt all of her energy escaping from her.
Raising her right hand to her face, she rubs her face.
"You, okay?"
Hearing Tony's voice to her right, she answers him quickly. "Yeah. I'm just...a little bit tired." She takes in a deep breath, which seems to only make her more tired instead of awaking her up a little more.
Tony turns his body from the window and towards the Jedi. "Well, it would be a privilege and a honor if you would stay at my place here tonight."
Putting her hand back down at her side, Angela once again nods to herself. "Yeah." She looks straight at Tony. "Yeah. That would...be..nice,...th..anks." Her words die away as she falls straight at Tony.
"Whoa!" Acting quickly, Tony thrusts his arms under Angela's limp arms, which kept her from falling on him.
Steve had also acted by grabbing onto her shoulders. "You got her?"
"For the moment." Repositioning for a better hold on Angela, Tony puts his right arm around her waist while putting Angela's left arm around his neck. Steve copies Tony and puts his left arm around Angela's waist while putting the Jedi's right arm around his neck as well.
"Well, I guess when she said that she was tired, she meant it." Adding his comment in, Steve starts to move away from the window, while both of them carried Angela towards the elevator on their right.
"I didn't think anybody could fall asleep that fast!" Amazement sounded in Tony's words as both he and Steve reached the elevator. Taking his grip off of Angela's right wrist, Steve pushes the button for the elevator doors, which open immediately in response. Since both of them couldn't fit in the elevator at once, Tony goes in first, making his way to the left side of the elevator. Steve comes in next, being careful not to let Angela bump into anything that might cause her to wake up.
"Yeah. Well, I've seen people fall asleep next to me in a complete shoot-out in The War. I would always be the one waking them up, though." Steve reaches out once more and pushes the elevator button to the floor where all the bedrooms were at and where Angela had officially met Steve and Tony. Responding to the signal, the elevator doors start to close.
Smiling widely to himself, Tony states, what he thinks will happen to Steve. "Something tells me that you and Angela will get along...very well."
Directly after this statement, the door on the elevator close tightly and the elevator takes the three humans to their desired destination.